Author: Kit Mullins

5 Tools To Help You (And Your Team) Be Better Marketers

As a marketer, you are likely bombarded with emails on a daily basis attempting to persuade you to try some new social media planning platform, schedule organizer, or team communication system. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands out there. Are you even looking? If so, how will you ever choose? Personal preference is a key player in this decision-making process, because ultimately, what matters is the functionality fit for your team. But, if you want to save yourself some time in researching, feel lost, or simply want to get the thoughts of another agency, here are a few of our favorite online marketing tools:

Grammarly

Do you still have trouble determining whether to use “your” or “you’re”? Is spelling not your cup of tea? Grammarly is quite essential for any business person who sends emails on a daily basis, and best of all, it’s free! Like everything else, you can pay more for the bells and whistles, but the free version really is perfect for disseminating professional emails, documents, etc. This tool functions in two ways: as a Chrome extension, and as an addition to Microsoft Office applications. Do yourself a favor and get both. You’ll never have to worry if it’s “there,” “their,” or “they’re” ever again.

Slack

Communication, even with the newest or fanciest technologies, can still be an issue for many companies and teams. We have found that Slack provides lots of benefits for those with both great and limited tech abilities, and creates spaces for organized conversations. For example, you can have the traditional message between two people, but you can also set up specific “channels” for teams, projects or clients to keep work flows methodized and catalogued. In this space, you can share documents as well, minimizing your inbox from blowing up with internal emails.

Teamweek

Do you work for a creative agency and have difficulty managing projects amongst the team? Teamweek may be a fit for you. This platform allows you to organize and assign projects, and best of all, it allows you to assign time to them for the rest of the team to see and plan around. This ensures a feasible workload, while also managing expectations with your client. If you happen to use Slack, you can integrate Teamweek to keep the team update in the space they are used to working in which makes it even better!

Basecamp

Another very useful work planning/assigning platform is Basecamp. While it is in many ways different from Teamweek, the majority of the goals are the same; Basecamp helps with keeping work flows organized and concise, and allows you to plan out your entire project so your team knows what lies ahead and can move through the steps realistically. Another helpful piece for perhaps your less motivated team members, or even those with a hectic workload, is the nudges it sends. Basecamp sends reminders as due dates creep up to assist in making sure deadlines are met- definitely a perk. Lastly, this tool keeps track as you check off tasks throughout the project, so you are able to see how much progress you have made and what is left to go overall which can be helpful in status updates to your clients.

Sprout Social

It is a challenge to find a social media platform that does it all without breaking the bank. Planning the content, getting the content approved/making revisions, scheduling the content and then pulling analytics that you can truly learn from are real needs that are not often met all in one space. Sprout Social is all these things and continues to get better, all while being friendly to the budget. Sprout makes everything easy to upload and provide feedback on, and the analytics are nothing short of fantastic. They are robust in what information they provide, and they provide competitive data as well. You and your clients will have big grins on your faces after trying this tool.

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Having the right tools to get the job done makes all the difference in the world. Now that we have helped you reassess your marketing tool belt, you can provide your clients with great work and give yourself a pat on the back for streamlining your internal efforts.

4 Tips For Better Customer Service Online

You fulfilled your dream of starting your own business. You are your own boss, you have a beautiful shop, and your beautiful, functional website and social media channels have all the right touches. You are confident that you have done everything possible to set yourself up for success. You have thought of everything, right? Next thing you know, the questions and comments come rolling in and you feel completely overwhelmed from an online customer service perspective.

This feeling is completely normal, but it’s also easy to relieve. The below steps will help you to put a process in place so that managing your online presence will be a breeze. After reading, be sure to scroll all the way down to see this information presented in an inforgraphic.

Anticipate and prepare for frequently asked questions (FAQs)

It is typically most helpful to create a list of questions you believe you are likely to receive from potential customers (i.e. “Where can I find your products?”, “What materials do you use?”, “My product was broken when I received it, can I get a new one?”, etc.”. Once you anticipate these questions, build an easily customizable response to those questions so you can get back to the person in a quick and efficient manner while providing a thought-out response. After a few months, you can edit this list to better meet the needs of your audience – we recommend doing this at least once per quarter to make sure your responses stay relevant.

Respond in a reasonable amount of time

Ease of communication is key when it comes to gaining loyal customers, especially online. Customers want to feel heard and understood. They also want to receive a timely response from you. The beauty of the online world is that everything is so easily available, but this means customers expect quicker responses. The most common guideline to response times is about 3 hours. Maintaining this overnight is difficult, and that’s okay as long as you catch up in the morning, and maintain a quick response time during business hours.

Maintain your brand’s voice in your communication

Remember that your brand voice is 24/7. All elements of your business need to be in this voice for continuity. If you are a clever and witty brand, this needs to be communicated in your customer service too. Don’t let this voice keep you from giving better customer service, but rather, use it to your benefit and reinforce what attracted customers to your brand in the first place.

Keep the conversation logical

While it is important to show your customers that you care about them and want to keep them happy, conversations can still become heated. It is important to keep emotion out of the communication unless absolutely necessary. Keep things factual, concise, and understanding. We also recommend taking an unhappy conversation from public to private from the start to keep reactions controlled. How you handle these heated conversations is likely the difference between a loyal customer and a lost opportunity.

Getting your business customer-service ready for the online space is no small task. It takes preparation and forethought, followed by consistent application, but you will be happy you did it. Gaining loyal customers becomes easy when they know they can count on you to be there for them!

brand voice FAQ infographic online customer service

Business Lessons From ‘THE TIPPING POINT’

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, is not a book about business. But in this article, we will extract some business lessons from The Tipping Point. Instead of being about business, the book is a deep-dive into historical events, with dollops of sociology and psychology. Why do people take action? Why do some plans work, where others fail? What causes a small occurrence to blossom into a larger trend? What causes an epidemic to take hold? The common thread is that each of these questions implies a tipping point of some sort. A moment when small changes become exponential. With his book, Gladwell set out to help us identify, and perhaps even create, tipping points in our own lives. This is done by exploring real-life tipping points from key historical “epidemics” of all shapes and sizes.

What exactly do we mean by epidemics? In addition to the viral outbreak of disease, an epidemic can be anything that “catches on”; word of mouth, crime, mass hysteria, clever marketing gimmicks, fashion, etc. You name it.

Read on for the components that can be found in any epidemic, followed by a few ways you might apply the book’s lessons to your business.

The Three Rules Of Epidemics

The Law of the Few
The Stickiness Factor
The Power of Context

The Law Of The Few

The “Law Of The Few” is the idea that, in terms of virality, not all people are created equal. Some in society carry a much greater potential for transmitting something (information, illness, etc.) to greater numbers of people. There are three main types of people who accelerate epidemics.

Connectors
Mavens
Salespeople

Simply put, Connectors know a lot of people. As obvious as that sounds, some people are much more skilled than the rest of us at maintaining casual acquaintances with a large number of people. As Gladwell puts it, they are masters of the “weak tie.”

⇒Think Paul Revere. On his midnight ride, he spread word of the British invasion. He was a connector who knew people of all stripes in many different social circles. There was no one better to get the word out than the person who knew practically everyone.

Do you know a passionate person who always seems to have the best advice? Someone you trust above all others? These people are Mavens. Not only do mavens feel driven to collect and organize as much information as possible, they are delighted to share their knowledge and assist others. They combine valuable information with the social skills to disseminate it.

⇒Again, think Paul Revere. As a maven involved with many organizations and committees, he not only knew many people in the area, but he knew the right people to tell first, and exactly where to find them.

Finally, there are Salespeople. These folks are adept at finding an engaging conversational rhythm, no matter their audience, and they are emotionally intelligent enough to subtly inspire agreement in others.

⇒Sticking with The Midnight Ride, the salespeople were those among the crowd who convinced everyone of the necessity to take action against the coming invasion, after Revere had already come and gone.

The Stickiness Factor

Some trends or products catch on in a big way. Some viruses are highly communicable and infect many. This quality, a combination of contagiousness and staying power, is called The Stickiness Factor. In the case of illness, “stickiness” is generally a very scientific matter. As with social phenomena, say a hot new fashion, emotion plays a larger role. Something that empowers an individual, makes it easy for them to improve their lives, or just makes them feel “cool,” is likely to have higher-than-average stickiness. A few examples from the book:

Lester Wunderman devised an iconic (and sticky) “treasure hunt” campaign for Columbia Record Club in 1978 that blew away the company’s traditional saturation campaign.
After multiple attempts to inform college students of free tetanus shots on campus, the information only became sticky when the info booklets included a campus map and the health office’s operating hours.
Sesame Street are Blue’s Clues are hit children’s television programs that also managed to make learning “sticky” for children by painstakingly structuring the content.

The Power of Context

The Power of Context is the somewhat radical idea that human behavior is just as susceptible to subtle factors in the environment as it is to genetics or the circumstances in which a person was raised. The idea that, under the right conditions, anyone would be capable of doing something that would normally be considered “uncharacteristic.”

Gladwell’s star example example of altering behavior through subtle changes (thus creating a tipping point) is how “Broken Windows Theory” led to the renovation of the New York City Subway in the 1980s. Broken Windows Theory is a concept in law enforcement stating that areas featuring signs of disrepair, such as broken windows, are more susceptible to heightened elements of crime. At the time, the subway was a notorious crime magnet, the cars were covered in graffiti, and many people refused to pay their fares (opting to hop over the turnstile, instead).

The renovation boiled down to two things: scrubbing the graffiti off of every subway car, and arresting fare-beaters. The refusal of the city to release any defaced subway cars into circulation, and a series of very public arrests of petty criminals at the stations, changed the subway-riding environment in two subtle but visible ways. The laws didn’t change, just the enforcement and perception of them afterward. Crime plummeted. It was an epidemic in reverse, if you will.

When we begin to look for the context surrounding a certain phenomenon, we can discover the small changes to a particular environment that can lead to precipitous change.

Idea Diffusion

Revolutionary ideas (or products) tend to follow this pathway through society:

Innovators
Early Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Deliberates
Skeptical Mass
Laggards

The segments of society noted above tend to fall perfectly along a standard distribution curve, though not every subject will make it through the entire curve.

Innovators and Early Adopters are out ahead of everyone else because they are looking for a “quantum leap” and are often in the position or mindset to take risks. Everyone else lags behind to some degree because they are more risk-averse and are comfortable with incremental and predictable progress.

The key for creating a viral idea is to span the chasm between the early folks and the late. Successful idea diffusion happens the same way rumors spread. The initial concept that works for the Innovators/Trendsetters/Cool Kids gets tweaked and sharpened in a way that makes sense to the Mainstream.

4 Lessons From ‘THE TIPPING POINT’

Make Your Business Sticky

“There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible.” (p. 132)

That’s what they call “the real trick.” Stickiness is a quality that can lead to addicted customers, and help create long-running repeat business.

Know Your Product Life-Cycle

Track how your products flow through various market segments, and understand that trying to change that process may not work.

In the mid-90s, Airwalk produced highly technical skate shoes for avid skaters. These were products for the innovators, the trendsetters, the “cool” kids. When Airwalk caught on with their target market, they were able to span the chasm to the mainstream by producing a less technical, more widely available shoe to be sold in malls. While the Innovators still got their semi-exclusive, cutting edge shoe, it remained trendy, and the mall version allowed the Mainstreamers to take pride in wearing a cool brand. The brand unraveled when Airwalk stopped marketing to both individual markets and started providing the exact same products to both boutiques and department stores.

Find The Few

Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople are not defined by wealth or social status. They are people who are looked up to, beloved, and respected within their social circles. They will also comprise a wholly different set of people, depending on the scenario. To create a tipping point of any kind, these are the people you must find and cultivate within your world.

In the Internet age, we have more information clutter than ever, which ironically, means we tend to rely more heavily than ever on the experts who know more than we do. These people are the mavens of the modern age.

Maven Traps

Learn to set “Maven Traps” to catch the attention of the mavens, enthusiasts, early adopters, etc. Many people have massive social influence, but trusted Mavens are rare.

As an example of a maven trap, Gladwell mentions the 800-number on individually packaged bars of Ivory soap. The number is for questions or comments about the soap, but, “who on earth could ever have a question about Ivory soap,” asks Gladwell. The answer: soap mavens. Take care of your Mavens when you are fortunate enough to find them!

What other lessons have you taken from ‘The Tipping Point’ and applied to your business? Let us know!

books business lessons Malcolm Gladwell mavens product life-cycle stickiness The Tipping Point

My Friend Built My Website (The Real Cost Of A Free Website)

friend built my website real cost of free

We all know somebody, a friend or a relative, who offers to build our company website on the cheap. Should you take them up on their offer? What is the real cost of a free website?

We recently had a new client in our office for a consultation. I mention him because this scenario happens more often than you might think. He had a website that was built for his business that was built by a graphic designer. When you open the page, it looked really nice. Good colors. Good layout. Clean and uncluttered. The site’s top navigation had 9 pages typical for many business sites: Home, Projects, Services, About Us, Our Advantages, Our Team, Our Clients, Our Blog, and Contact.

You might be wondering why a website created by a graphic designer and with the mix of content mentioned above might need to come to our agency for help. Let me explain what he had been using for his company website for over a year.

Home — There were only 97 combined words on all 9 pages. Of the words that were there, the Home page featured a piece of equipment that the business does not carry — and never has.
- The next section on the Home page introduces the site visitor to “many different kinds of solutions…” But, there is not a single solution mentioned.
- The next section on the Home page says that the team, “brings
  our clients the most amazing projects.” But this company does not deal in projects. It deals in equipment.
- The next section tells how many projects the team has completed.
- The following section displayed four social media icons, but the business didn’t have accounts on three of them. The one social media account they do have is not connected to the icon on the site.
Services — The link to the Services page was dead.
All of the following pages were dead links: Our Advantages, Our Team, Our Clients, Our Blog.

As is often the case, the site was built and handed off to the business owner. He and his team thought they would learn how to make the changes, learn the skills to write the content themselves, and be able to get the professional pictures they needed to represent their business. A year later they were still using their unfinished website and hoping that it would not distract prospects or undermine the company’s trustworthiness, reliability, and confidence.

I wondered, how much did that website cost that company in lost reputation and lost business?

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If you choose to go with a free website, be sure to understand the important elements that must be completed. Be sure that all the links work, that all the words and messages are accurate, the pictures are well-lit, sharp, and not pixelated, and that the site itself looks professional — like your business. You’ll want to make sure the elements of search engine optimization (SEO) are in place so Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines can deliver potential customers to your new site.

What if all those factors are not 100% ship-shape? Below is a scenario that reflects a conservative estimate of the hidden costs of a website that is incomplete and/or not visible on Google:

Average service call is $200
One service call per week for your new website (52 x $200) comes out to $10,400 per year
Your “free” website lives for 3 years, a conservative estimate (3 x $10,400), comes out to $31,200

Maintaining your “free” website might cost you $31,200 in lost revenue during those 3 years. And, that $31K is not taking into consideration the amount of money lost from possible referrals that could have resulted from those service calls that were not made over the 3 year period.

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Don’t Forget The “Google Factor” In Your Website Budget

When an inquiry is made as to how much a website and online marketing will cost, a business owner should understand what we call the “Google factor.” Those who don’t understand the role Google plays in their marketing efforts are at risk of losing money from poor sales.

Google looks at the content of the website from a consumer’s perspective. When a consumer types a word or phrase into Google’s search bar, Google’s goal is to provide a list of webpages that will most likely answer the consumer’s exact question.

How do you get your website to be on that results list Google serves up to answer searcher inquiries? The process begins with your website design. Then the process continues with your website’s copy, and your full suite of marketing efforts.

1 – Design (Mobile) – Your website needs to be mobile compliant.

2 – Design (Secure) – Your website needs to have a secure certificate. Google prefers the site to be “https” instead of “http.”

3 – Keywords – The words on your website should be written to incorporate your most important keywords and phrases. As the business owner, it is wise to come up with a list of the words and phrases that people use to search for your products and services. These words should be woven in to the page titles, headlines, and body copy of the site, as well as meta tags and descriptions. Using Google Analytics on your site is a good way to supplement your brainstorming.

4 – Dynamic Content – Google is less fond of static sites and favors websites that have dynamic (regular, fresh, changing) content. Google watches your site to see if fresh content is added that could answer consumers’ questions.

5 – Social – Google watches social media to see if people are talking about your website content and sharing information obtained from your site. Google even monitors how many links are on the web that drive people back to your site.

It is our job to help you understand how the Google factor can impact your business and drive traffic, or slow down traffic to your website.

As part of our process of working with clients, we educate business owners about which additional features they may need to consider for their sites. We believe it is important to understand how Google will view their website and their content because Google’s opinion of their website will determine how frequently their site is displayed as a result of a search query.

Your website needs to satisfy Google so you ultimately satisfy the needs of your potential customers.

Give us a shout and we can chat about how to make your site more Google-friendly.

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How Much Does a Website Cost? Factors and Features

Jemully Media - how much does a website cost

You’ve got a business and you know you need to update your site. The site your company has now has old information and you admit that it looks old school. It is probably not mobile compliant – so you are missing customers who are looking for you on their mobile devices. The next logical step is to ask the question: how much does a new website cost? Are they ways to get all the features you want and still watch the budget?

How much will a new website cost?

Feature Wide free website freelance web developer landing page web design web development website cost website price range

What Does It Really Take To Get Your Website Online? (Infographic)

We really need to get a new website.

You’ve known it for a while and you’ve finally said it out loud. “We need to get a new website.” By now you’ve looked around online and found that shopping for a website is not as easy as shopping on amazon.com. The reason for that is likely that there is tech terminology to translate and a whole gaggle of goodies and gadgets to choose from. It is difficult to determine what you truly need to get that site up and running. The following list of definitions will help you understand what some of the web development jargon means. Each of these elements plays a different part in actually getting your website on the Internet, and out there where potential customers can find it.

Website Related Definitions

Domain

The unique name of your company’s website. The domain name is the web address you buy. It is the web address that visitors will type into the address bar to get to your website. Example: houseplants.com

Hosting

Web hosting is renting space on a computer (called a server) that makes your website accessible on the Internet.

Mobile Design

A style of web development that is more optimal than automated mobile responsiveness. Mobile design requires coding for certain design elements on the website so they will be displayed properly on a mobile device, which will have a smaller screen that your typical desktop or laptop.

Mobile Responsive

Web development that automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on. Typically, there have been four general screen sizes: the widescreen desktop monitor, the laptop, the tablet, and the phone.

Secure Certificate

A secure certificate on a website changes the “http” to “https.” This certificate is called an “SSL” (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. It is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts (scrambles) information from the web server to a visitor’s browser.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The process of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Website Content Writing

The words and messages written for static pages of a website using key words and phrases to attract a specific target audience to perform a specific marketing goal.

Website Design

Web design is about creating how the website will look. Web design includes the determining the site’s layout, color scheme, typography, graphic elements, and imagery.

Website Development

Is taking the web design and bringing it to life, giving the website functionality through HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and other programming.

Website Maintenance

Security Updates — Security updates and monitoring your website will help to patch possibles openings where hackers could gain access. These updates happen in the background while your site is live. An occasional update will affect other areas of the site. A maintenance package with a professional will keep all the elements of your website safe, up-to-date, and functioning.
Backups — A website maintenance package includes regular backups of your site. These backups range in frequency from daily to weekly to monthly. It is best if your backups are kept in multiple locations. If your site gets hit by hackers, or even wiped out entirely, a good site backup keep you from having to start over from scratch and gets you back up and running in hours instead of months.

What do you really need to get your website online?

Let’s sift through the list above. Use the following chart as your guide to knowing what you’ve gotta have and what can be considered luxury.

Using the list of definitions above (plus a few optional items that are not defined above), we have divided the technical and marketing items you’ll need for your company website into three categories.

Website Must-Haves

First, there are the things you absolutely, positively, without a doubt have to have to get your website up and running. Those things are outlined in the “Must-Haves” column. You may be able to do many of these yourself, or you may have to hire someone to do them for you. Either way, you must have these items in some form.

Website Really-Needs

Then, there are some things that you really better have if you want your new website to be visited by actual people. These are listed in the center column labeled as “Really-Needs.” They ought to be labeled the “Shoulds” because you should have the things you “really need,” but still, you can build a website without them (it’s just not recommended).

Let me explain and clear the fog of that last statement. With a website, it is not true that “if you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, websites don’t work that way. If you build a website, it doesn’t mean that you will have traffic and customers to your site. So, pay attention to the middle column. This is where you incorporate some of the key things that will help people find your website.

Website Nice Features

Finally, we added a column and listed some optional website features that are not in the definitions list above. You will want to consider adding some of these features because they add informative pages and elements to your website so your customers can understand all the great things you have to offer them and how you can solve their problems. So, give some consideration to the items in this category, and whether they might help you to better represent your company online.

If we can help you sort through the details, give us a shout. Every day we help businesses look at this list and make the right decisions for their companies’ websites. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

Website Must Haves, Really-Needs, and Nice Features: An Infographic

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What Is Twitter (And How Can It Help Your Business)?

What makes Twitter different than other social media platforms?

What Is Twitter?

Maybe you’ve heard it before. There are some people who will say, “What is Twitter?” “I don’t ‘get’ Twitter,” and “how can Twitter help my business?” The implication is that they ‘get’ other social media, but not Twitter. This makes as good a place to start as any, if we are to examine Twitter as a social medium where businesses could and should have a presence. Twitter.com is a social media platform like no other, and grasping its differences is the first step to understanding how a business can get the most from it.

Facebook vs. Twitter

So, why do some not understand Twitter?

Probably the biggest reason is that they bring the wrong expectations to it. Other social media platforms have more straightforwardly obvious reasons for existence. Facebook, on the web, is ubiquitous. And as such it is generally the standard-setter, where social media is concerned. It is quite different from Twitter. Facebook is about personal connections and keeping up with one’s friends, family, and such. Where business pages on Facebook are concerned, the functionality is rather similar to a website, and everyone on the web knows what a website does. A Facebook business page holds the business’s vital information, and even has pages, as a website does, for drilling down into greater detail. Further, many companies even have a Facebook store. Web commerce is done there, just as it can be done on a website.

Pinterest and Instagram vs. Twitter

Other social media are likewise rather obvious in their function. Pinterest is a sort of scrapbooking site. Pinterest does much more, of course, but we can all see the usefulness of Pinterest at a glance. Instagram is about sharing cell phone photos — that, too, is plain, and also useful.

Twitter, on the other hand, is not equipped to provide these services — not as straightforwardly, anyway. Twitter is essentially a chat room. And like a chat room, Twitter is more “real time” and immediate than other social media. Twitter is more about breaking news than Facebook is. More than Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Google Plus are, as well.

Twitter is also about conversations. Rapid-fire communications. It is very news- and trend-driven. Twitter is a platform that people turn to when news is breaking and they want to see what the reactions to it are, in real time.

Twitter’s Noisy Rep

It’s often said that Twitter is “noisy,” and by “noisy” someone means that it can be a firehose of content. Nothing is thinned out or excluded. Every tweet goes into a feed, and every follower of that tweep (individuals with accounts on Twitter are called “tweeps”) receives that message. That has pluses and minuses. The good part, obviously, is that Twitter does not have the constriction of reach that we must contend with on Facebook and other channels. The bad part is, of course, the chaos and noise, and that fact that messages can be missed by followers in the torrent of content.

There are ways to reduce that chaos and noise. We have more to say more about that in the future, but for now, we are still analyzing Twitter’s differences.

Facebook vs. Twitter (once more)

We found this question posed on Quora: “If a business could choose only one, which network should they choose (Facebook or Twitter)?” A representative of Zoho.com offered this answer:

“It depends on these considerations: (1) On which network does most of your target audience hang out? (2.) What is the primary objective for your social media presence? If you want to create and share content and get more reach for it, then Twitter is definitely the better network since its format lets content get shared/spread more easily. (Emphasis ours.) If you want to showcase your products online and enable people to place orders from your page when they see them, then Facebook is the network to choose because the format makes it easy for your audience to view your products for a longer period of time. (3) How much time can you invest? While both networks will require you to put in time and effort, Twitter is more real-time in nature than Facebook. So if you’re going to actively engage your audience on either network, trying to do it on Twitter could take more time (although it may be worth the extra time, in most cases).”

Perfect for Mobile

Twitter is well suited for mobile users. Its 140-character limit for messaging makes it easy to operate in one’s palm, on the fly.

Twitter is efficient. Because it is so “noisy,” it is also very forgiving — and that forgiveness makes it the perfect platform for repeating and re-using one’s content. Twitter followings are very tolerant of message-repeating. That’s largely because Twitter’s firehose feed means that most tweets don’t get seen by most followers on the first pass, anyway. So transmitting a tweet hours later, or days later, is commonplace on the medium and the Twitterverse is generally fine with it. That means you can get extra mileage out of your content creation. If you’re using Twitter for link-building, that means you’ll get more links built with less time and money.

Growth Hacking and Twitter

Twitter is also a productive place for growth hacking, and given that many companies like to use Twitter to build followings and to move those followings over to Facebook or LinkedIn or other more “aggressive” sites, growth hacking on Twitter can be a very worthwhile proposition.

As author and digital marketing authority Gary Vaynerchuk said in his book, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, “Twitter is a marketer’s dream come true because it allows you to initiate a relationship with your customer.” That’s a good way of thinking about Twitter. It’s an easier, breezier environment for making personal connections, because of that “chat room” feeling. And savvy marketers will then want to cultivate connections by coaxing them over to other social media or to the company’s website.

Twitter Versatility

Moreover, Twitter is a social platform uniquely positioned for customer service, direct influencer-outreach, content distribution, and social listening. For insights on all four, see this source.

Now that we’ve covered the main aspects of the “Twitter Difference,” we can hit some high points of how to make the most of your business’s Twitter presence. For that, stay tuned for our next deep-dive into Twitter. And be sure to follow us on Twitter for timely tips and links to more in-depth content, not just on Twitter practices but on web marketing and social media—in fact, on all digital marketing efforts in general. Happy tweeting!

For more on Twitter for business, see our article on Twitter Do’s and Don’ts.

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Why SEO And Content Marketing Are Much The Same Thing

Nearly three decades into the game, SEO is now practically synonymous with content marketing.

The trick of ranking atop Google’s results pages has been reduced to a few simple truths: size, content, and targeting. Search engines will no longer bend to our wills; we must bend over backwards for search engine users.

In the early days of the Internet, search engine optimization (SEO) resembled the Wild West. Outlaws resorted to all manner of nefarious tactics to improve their search ranking and visibility. Such tactics included keyword stuffing, bait-and-switch, and other “black hat” methods that would be considered spam today. These practices have been rooted out in the name of reader service. They simply don’t work anymore—the loopholes have been closed. The logic behind Google and other engines closing these loopholes is simple: provide a better user experience.

Remember: Google, and the concept of SEO itself, does not revolve around who ranks at the top. It’s all about granting ease of access to the content that best serves readers. It’s an end-user product rather than a marketing platform, and thinking in these terms is helpful when evaluating the content we publish.

Internet users scouring various search engines for answers know what they’re looking for. Sometimes it takes a few searches, but they know it when they see it. Users don’t want pages that use metadata to misrepresent what the content is actually about, and they definitely do not want spam. The better results a search engine like Google can provide its users, the more likely they are to use Google the next time. Rendering dishonest SEO practices obsolete is simply a part of the natural evolution of a search engine. “Better search results” precludes weaker or misrepresented web content.

The “outlaws of Internets past” held that SEO was all just a game. One could simply work the system in place at the time and reap huge rewards. The game has changed. With Google effectively acting as a world power now, there is no more latitude for playing around. Getting to the top of the first page for high-competition keywords is not a matter of paying your way to the top (that’s what Google AdWords is for), nor is it something that can be attained through savvy trickery. The game is now entirely above the table, rather than below it. The only way to sneak an ace up your sleeve is to be a huge brand or content farm.

And for the rest of us with average-sized websites and strictly regional brand awareness? We can’t all be Internet giants, but we can become elite at integrating our marketing communications and expertly targeting our specific niches.

The SEO Pie

It helps to think of your SEO efforts as working in concert with the rest of your digital marketing efforts. While trickery is not a valid SEO method anymore, on-page optimization is only one slice of your SEO Pie. On-page is still important, but without an overarching strategy encompassing your web content, social media, advertising, etc., you are only working with a small portion of the pie and should adjust your expectations accordingly.

As marketers, strategy and goal-setting are so vital to what we do. Remember, goal-setting is not as simple as “sales.” Marketing campaigns can raise brand awareness, educate the public, entertain, and lead to many different calls-to-action. Without a specific set of goals, it’s easy to fall into the trap of repeating yourself over and over. Instead, try to design your efforts strategically and with specific goals in mind. The difference is that goals represent a finish line, but selling is never finished. While “sales” and “success” can often look like the same thing, it is important to delineate the two.

It’s difficult to have major SEO success without orchestrating all of your digital marketing efforts around it. First things first; you need an overarching digital strategy. Next, you can’t be worried about SEO unless you have a website, preferably one meeting modern criteria such as mobile-friendliness. Tailoring your web content to your audience using appropriate landing pages and a company blog comes next. Don’t forget about links! Building a strong portfolio of inbound links through social media and email marketing are oft-forgotten ingredients of SEO.

Do you use Google AdWords or Facebook Ads? They may not be traditional forms of SEO, but they regularly deliver traffic to your site’s landing pages. Landing pages work best when they are built and targeted with skill and intent. The better your most important landing pages are, the better your SEO will be.

SEO And Content Marketing

Speaking of landing pages, they are typically your interior pages, containing your meatiest content. Knowing your business’s most valuable long-tail keywords (the three-or-four-plus-word queries that tend to bring people to your landing pages) is emerging as the best way to own your niche, and become a champion targeter. A sound SEO strategy should include building at least one well-written and optimized page tailored toward every long-tail phrase that is important to your business. If you don’t know what those long-tail keywords and phrases are, then spend a some time getting to know your web visitors. Get to know your niche!

In today’s SEO landscape, questions demand not just answers but relevant answers. This means there is now a great deal of overlap between relevance, content marketing, and SEO.

How many pieces of your SEO pie are you using? We want to know!

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