8 Major Social-Media Mistakes Your Business Can't Afford to Make

Social media marketing is crucial for growing your business. No wonder a lot of businesses are considering it a must-have component of marketing strategies. Unfortunately, most businesses do not know the right way of doing it. They make a lot of mistakes. Knowing these and avoiding them on social media will increase your chances of success dramatically.

Here are 8 mistakes you must avoid doing on social media:

1. No Interaction with Followers

Social media is the number one line of communication available online in today's time. It is no secret that the majority of consumers is plugged into social media almost 24 x 7. No wonder social media are  perceived as a major customer support tool by experts. Many modern day businesses have realized the importance of social media as a potential marketing strategy. The idea is to take advantage of your follower's dependence on the social media and the amount of time they devote to it. Create some raving fans for your business with this opportunity. Each business is different and targets a unique audience. Hence, you must think of content your followers would be likely to engage with. Take care that your social media posts are more than traditional advertisements and visible efforts to convert followers into customers.

2. More Promotional Than Necessary

Posting ad after ad can make things difficult and very complicated. This will scare your followers away. So focus only on introducing offers very slowly. Don't make your followers feel that all of your posts are glorified ads. They will find other accounts to follow and stop returning to you. Your business needs them more than they need you.

3. No Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Increasing sales is not just about collecting followers. Each social media profile provides you with space to place your website link. So why is it that so many businesses miss out on an opportunity to collect leads? Putting website’s homepage URL in these sections will not work. Simply put a link to your newsletter offer. You may even use direct-to-purchase offer or downloadable white paper for the same. Remember that most social media clicks to hit your homepage are wasted clicks. The visitors may not have enough time to find the offers. Focus on sending them directly to offers which increases conversion rates.

It is also a great idea to mix in some CTAs in your posts. These don't have to be overly promotional. For instance, once you have created some informative infographic for your website/blog and wish to drive traffic to it, try including a dynamic CTA such as “Check out this cool infographic – especially the 4”. The idea is to do more than what most businesses do. Go beyong posting the URL on social media and hoping potential clients will check it out.

4. Less is More

Most businesses want to be active on all social media channels. This is not the right move unless you have a recruited a dedicated social media team or decided to outsource social media to a reputed digital agency. So it is better to be a star of 2-3 channels than playing a mediocre on all of them. With less of accounts to handle, you can message your followers in a timely manner and manage them. Faster replies will help you engage more and even create lifelong brand supporters.

5. No Social Media Strategy

Having a strong social media strategy will help you avoid mistakes. Having a strong strategy will help you build a positive social media presence. It should have a measurable goal, such as acquiring over 75-100 people to subscribe to email list. Prepare a list of the type of content you wish to share, your target audience, their interest, etc. to make the strategy a success. It  is also important to know how to deal with various engagements including comments, queries (positive and negative).

6. Are You Selling Too Much? Too Little?

Talking about your brand only in social media doesn't work. The main focus should be shifted to what your consumers care about. You must share content related to this. The content should be valuable and highly informational. Also aim for more than just getting maximum likes. Having a large audience doesn’t necessarily mean you can convert them. Your calls-to-actions should guide audience to a landing page or subscribe to a newsletter.

7. Sharing The Wrong Way

Most people believe in sharing too much or too little which creates problems. Although it is important to keep your account is active, avoid spamming your audience. Knowing the right amount of posts each day is a tricky process. One good way to start off with this is to have a close look at what your competition is doing. In case, they are doing well, simply have them as a reference. Once you find the ideal number of times to share content, know the right time to share it. Sharing at the wrong time means things may not reach your target audience at all. This kind of sharing does not make any sense. A number of tools can be used to know when your audience is on. Look for some free tools online.

8. Non Existent On Social Media

Remember that your audience wants to relate to real people. So make them feel like there are real people behind their account. So make sure you use an appropriate voice and speak just like your clients do. Engaging with the audience is key to success in social media. Instant replies to comments is important.

Strong social media presence will help your business grow and thrive. Make sure it is done right and stay away from the above listed 8 mistakes.

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Optimize Your Website for Mobile First Index in Just 5 Steps

Google is officially in testing a mobile-first index. So experts in the field have already predicted the success of mobile-friendly sites. The new index being tested by Google will go to the desktop version of your site only after throwing a look at its mobile version for ranking signals. Gradually, Google has started taking its step towards mobile-first index. It has been over a year now.

In case, you have not joined the mobile revolution, yet, it is the right time to take action. Mobile is ruling over search. This has forced Google and various other search engines emphasise more on mobile.

Listed below are 5 easy yet very effective steps to be taken in order to optimize your site for mobile-first index of Google:

1. Respect The Speed

According to a report about Site Performance for Webmasters video of Google, it has been revealed 2 seconds is the threshold for acceptability for any modern e-commerce website . For Google, users aim for under a half second! These days, users expect their websites to load faster. Hence, it is crucial to make sure your website loads as fast as possible. This will help it rank well on mobile. Some of the best ways to optimize page speed, includes the following:

Optimize Image – Remember that large images always decreases speed of a website. So make sure you optimize images to the appropriate size.

Focus on Browser Caching – The process will help you store web page resource files on a local computer as soon as a visits your web page.

Code Minify - The process involves removal of all unnecessary characters from source code sans any need to change its functionality.

Minimize Redirects – A website may reload and slow down dramatically if there are too many redirects.

2. No More Blocking

Although blocking these CSS, JavaScript or images has proved helpful in the early days of mobile design, they caused problems for users and even made the site drag to a point that the users got irritated. In most cases, smartphones are widely used and preferred as compared to computers. These phones are very efficient at handling just about anything thrown at.

3. Mobile Design

It is crucial to understand how SEO has transitioned from a mere technical task to an art. The present day SEO should be about acquiring knowledge and detailed understanding of more than just codes and cliched ranking signals. You must know various effective ways to use design to influence rankings. Mobile design is certainly a form of art in its own sense.

Having responsive design is the best way to go for a modern age site. Regardless of the procedure and various techniques involved, you need to follow certain tips to optimize mobile website design for search in a better way. Here's what you need to focus on.

- Do not use Flash. Most mobile users cannot view Flash elements on their phones. This makes eliminate Flash a necessity to remove them. Try using Java or HTML 5 instead of Flash. You may even think of adding some extra cool elements to the site.

- Another tip is to eliminate pop-ups completely. These are a total turn-off for your potential and existing clients. Remember that lead generation is a crucial element for success of any website. In case, your mobile site is overloaded with pop-ups, it frustrates your users. They will make an exit immediately, resulting in a very high bounce rate and low rankings. Hence, make sure you get rid of pop-ups on mobile.

- Focus on designing your website for “the finger.” This is because your mobile users require navigating with their finger. Hence, making design “finger-friendly” will ultimately make it easier for users to navigate through your website and spend more time on it. Remember that accidental taps can irritate your visitors to a point that they want to exit sites without even browsing through it. Hence, the site should be built in a fashion to help visitors scroll and tap without hassles.

4. On-page Optimization

There's not much room to work with especially with respect to the mobile SERPS (search engine results pages). So it is crucial to make sure that titles and descriptions are as concise and to the point as possible. This is crucial to support GoogleBot understand your page faster. It also ensures a better understanding of who you are. The final result is a higher click-through rate leading to improved rankings.

5. Local Optimization

Google released 'Possum' in September. It is a massive update to the local search algorithm. Businesses looking forward to drive foot traffic into their stores should seriously consider mobile search. As per a research by Google into local search behavior, it has been revealed that local searchers are all set to take the necessary action.

As per the report, they have revealed that around 50 per cent of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone had visited a single day. Additionally, around 34 percent who already searched on a tablet or computer did the same. Local businesses can benefit a lot from the mobile-first index.

Listed below are certain important things you must keep in mind in order to increase mobile visibility of your website:

• City and state in the title tag
• City and state in the H1 heading
• City and state in the URL
• City and state in content
• City and state in the alt tags
• City and state in the meta description
• Business Name, Phone and Address

There's a lot more to learn as Google progresses with their experiment and mobile index. However, taking action right now or as soon as possible means making efficient steps towards visibility in mobile search for your site.

The idea is not to wait until the switch to mobile-first indexing gets “official.” The present day is the right time for action. Following the above listed tips will help you optimize your business website for mobile first index of Google.

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7 Wonderful Steps to Optimize Web Content for Humans and Search Engines

Most businessmen have a storehouse of some brilliant ideas and a vision for what needs to be done for the company in their mind. They have some wonderful plans and revolutionary concepts too. Although you might be the next big thing for your business, things might go drown in the drain due to lack of effective communication between you and the user.

It is important to know that potential customers will get an impression of you and your company through website. If you do not focus on keeping content up to the mark, the potential customer may not get converted into your customer. Failing to impress them with your content will repel them. They will not call you up to learn more about what you sell.

Search Engine Optimization is the best thing to include into your website and create that much needed powerful impression on customers. Listed below are 7 important steps to optimize your web content:

Step 1 - Honest and Accurate Content

Web content optimization strategy is not a new thing. It has been in existence since many decades. The key is to understand that fabricated content does not appeal to anyone. Hence, the best website content has to be honest content. As you focus on adding honest, relevant and accurate content to your site, you actually add to the credibility of your website. This will have you more happy and satisfied customers as you attempt to deliver precisely what's promised. Make sure you avoid all kinds of click-baits in keywords, image alt tags, and headlines as this may hamper the reputation of your website.

Step 2 - User Centric Content

Always make clients your top priority. This is possible if you focus on making web design and content user-centric. So get into the shoes of your user and know what your customer wants. This is important to create content that attracts users. Remember that reliability gives way to a long term friendship. Make sure you show client that you have things in common.

Step 3 - Scannable and Simple Content

You are on a research spree. Here, gathering information related to a specific product and different providers is vital. A lot of the time people simply scan through the content as they don't get ample time to read. Dealing with the mindset is possible by making the content “scan-friendly”. This way, the potential client can get a good idea of your content quality. All you need is simply scanning your website.

Additionally, it is important to ensure the content minimalistic and easy. Do not add any jargons or terms that will make your clients grab a dictionary.

Step 4 - Learn SEO Basics

Since it is not possible to repeat keywords in the present day, simply go back to the basics for Search Engine Optimization. You need to start from there. When designing the content search engines love, there are certain things you need to learn such as Title, Meta Description, H1 (The headline is the tag for Search Engines), Image Alt Tag, and URLs. Also remember that minimalistic and shorter URLs tend to attract more clicks. It is advisable to keep it short, simple and significant. Also, do not overdo with keywords or over do the keyword. You must include variations of it. Let the keyword show up in the headline and title. You may also use it twice or thrice in the entire body.

Step 5 – Keep Keyword Repetition at the Lowest

This is an excellent tool for search engine optimization. Unfortunately, this trick has already reached to the robots. Hence, you may be penalized for baiting the users through keyword repetition. Additionally, it is quite irritating to read the recurrence of the same word when scanning. In short, you must use keywords, but make double sure that you don’t overdo it.

Step 6 – Focus on Crosslink

There are several benefits of cross linking. One of the best ones is that it lets you gain higher search engine ranking via increasing the number of crosslinks on your business website. In simple words, Simply put, linking to relevant websites through sidebar linking or in-content will make search engines add to the relevance of your website. This ultimately results in higher rank for your domain.

There are a number of things you need to keep in mind while crosslinking including originality and uniqueness of content, theme similarity between the linked content, best user experience, use of appropriate keywords, and making it all seem natural. You must avoid forcing it.

Step 7 – Accept the Flow

It is very crucial to follow all of the above listed steps for Search Engine Optimization. However, it is also very important to make sure it doesn’t seem awkward or made up. Anything that seems forced into the human does not really work well with search engines. The key is to keep both the Search Engine and the human happy. This means whenever you’re not forced to repeat a keyword, or add frailty without any reason, simply go with the flow, following all of the instructions.

Following the above listed 7 steps will help you optimize your web content for both human & search engines.

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5 Best Ways to Increase Online Visibility

Increasing online visibility is important for boosting brand value of your company. This will be very helpful for attracting more number of clients to your website. Before moving on to understanding the importance of online visibility, let's know what online visibility is all about:

What is Online Visibility?

Online visibility refers to the process of your potential clients reaching out to a website while searching for a solution to their problem. It also means your market wishes to share an amazing resource with their audience and the resource is yours.

When your online visibility increases, it means that people interested in buying and looking for a local supplier will come across your website as one of the options they get to choose from. You rank for a huge number of keywords when your potential clients research for their options.

Benefits of Online Visibility

- Your business website will rank really well for both commercial and non-commercial keywords
- Website content will get shared on social media.
- Constant promotion in the right direction will help you acquire links to your site.
- The number of searches for which your business website appears in search results will increase.
- Rankings for all keywords will move upward in the long run.
- Your traffic from search engines increases with an increase in its visibility online.
- Your sales increase if you are successful in converting your increased inquiries. your sales should also be increasing.
- As the targeted traffic increases, the number of people entering your online marketing funnel will automatically increase.

Simple Ways to Increase Online Visibility:

1. Blog is Important

Your blog makes for the most essential marketing tool for a small business. It is also the hub of your inbound marketing strategy. Your blog is right where you can showcase your expertise and provide value to your target audience. The more content you provide helping your target audience, the more visibility will be awarded to your web presence. Each blog post is a unique web page. When you add a new page to your website, you actually increase your digital footprint. It will have another opportunity to rank for a particular keyword phrase. Focus on at least one blog post a month. This will increase online visibility and advancement to your website in the search engine results. Try hiring a freelance writer who can create excellent posts for you.

2. SEO Basics

Try learning SEO basics. For instance, you can create quality content and use basic on-page search engine optimization techniques. This will help your content rank well in the search engine results. For On-page SEO, you can write high quality content using variations of primary keyword phrase. Remember that each page or blog post needs to focus on a specific topic. Also use descriptive page and post titles. You may use a plugin such as WordPress SEO that points out precisely where and how you should optimize your pages and posts. The plugin comes with built-in page analysis that guides you on the finer points of SEO.

3. Curate Content

There is no compulsion of creating original content in order to be perceived as the central place for useful information. You must find and share content written by others. Enhance this with your thoughts, views and commentary. This way, you will be able to provide valuable service to your followers. Also direct people to high quality piece of content as social media posts or email newsletters. This will enhance your visibility while strengthening your reputation as an expert. This is possible via spending some time each day and scheduling posts for delivery all through the day on your social media sites via using Hootsuite. Also respond to those who have responded.

4. Ask for Customer Reviews

Focus on the best ways to boost your visibility. It is about encouraging your customers to provide better reviews on social media sites such as Google+, Facebook, Angie’s List etc. According to a recent survey, over 90 per cent of customers have confessed that their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. Happy customers are very important to influence a potential buyer's decision. So make sure your happy customers post reviews. Encourage them to write reviews. This can be added as a part of your customer service process.

5. Social Media Active

Each business can benefit from certain social media activity. Choosing the right platforms for your business is important and becoming active is also important. For instance, posting content, enquiring and interacting with your followers on a regular basis will boost your visibility.

Remember that social media profiles appear in search engine results very frequently. Hence, it is important to make sure all of your social media profiles are written really well and consistently branded. It should be optimized around the way you wish to be located online. Also include complete contact information across all profiles. The primary goal of creating a large digital footprint with website as the hub is to make sure there are several different ways for people to find you.

The idea is not having a lot of friends, followers or likes. It is about the quality of those who connect and interact with your business. You can pick one or two social media platforms that make the best sense for your business. You need to develop the best content strategy and implement those regularly.

Following the above listed tips will help you increase your online visibility.

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Top 5 Reasons You Should Maximize Your Local SEO Now!

Ignoring local SEO can be harmful. It is important to use it for a variety of reasons, including welcoming your group for connecting or collaborating with your business. This will help everyone enjoy a decent time.

According to specialists and experts in the field of SEO, local SEO is as important as natural SEO. The moment individuals look for a business such as a restaurant, plant, nursery, dental practitioner, etc. they also put in a neighborhood segment. For instance, they may include the name of a city. This will help Google to perceive that specific pursuits are local in nature and will naturally display region specific choices to the client.

Organizations enjoying high nearby SEO rankings get introduced to clients. No wonder neighborhood SEO is so vital. The concept of natural SEO applies when the inquiry is not geographic-particular. Here are top 5 reasons you must focus on boosting local SEO:

1. Google Simply Loves Local Businesses

It is true that Google has shown some kind of favouritism towards newer, smaller, and more flexible companies. Although most part of Google's ranking biases have to do with history of the brand and authority, Google focusses on offering its visitors what they want. This also means displaying more popular brands. Small business owners can now enjoy more power in breaking new ground. Google holds a very long history of providing free tools to its users, including Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and many more to business owners. The main reason is to extend support for enhancing online visibility.

2. Users Will Benefit From More Individualized Results

Google likes to ensure individualized results to its users. It is true that predictive and customized search features are restricted for a certain period of time. However, the search engine generates specific results based on the person who is searching. Till the time you’re logged into a Google account, your search history and geographic location will play into the result type. With regular growth of Google, users are now demanding even more individualized results. This will boost the significance of local optimization which will only grow.

3. Mobile and Wearable Devices Grow

The percentage of online searches performed on different mobile devices has grown considerably. A majority of mobile searches is performed while on the go. The introduction of wearable devices, such as the Apple Watch and others, users will start using on-the-go searches more often. This will include more immediate needs. This results in popularity of proximity-based searches. All local searches will be based on hyper-specific locations as compared to just on a local or neighborhood-specific basis. It is important to note that wearable devices will drive a much more geographically relevant network of information. This will also eliminate barriers between the digital and physical worlds.

4. Ever Increasing Competition

Millions of new sites are created each year. Also, many thousands of new businesses get established as badass corporations. In response to this, search visibility drops in many areas, with features including Knowledge Graph that has already taken over search engine results pages. The competition is increasing at lightening speed. This has forced many business owners to find smaller target niches to be able to gain relevant visibility. Local optimization is one of the most efficient ways to do this. Hence, the significance of local SEO will only grow as competition continues to increase.

5. Local vs. Organic SEO

When people search a business such as a garden, pub, restaurant, dentist, etc. they tend to put in a local component such as the name of a city. Google is aware that most searches, such as for food and related services, are local in nature. Hence, these will automatically present location-specific options to users (online visitors).

Companies holding high local SEO rankings usually the ones presented to the user. This is what makes local SEO is all the more important. The concept of organic SEO applies specifically when the search is not geographic-specific. Under such situations, your website ranks against all others of the same type across the nation. In some cases, the entire world! In case, you draw a considerable part of your revenue from local customers, it is crucial that you invest in local SEO.

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5 Tips for Creating Content to Share on LinkedIn

Smart marketers are fully aware of the importance of creating highly shareable content  for promoting themselves by sending the least amount of money. When you share intriguing content, people will click on it and share it too. Sharing best witty content will keep them in highlight always. It makes for the easiest ways to get ranked as an expert and attract more followers. So focus on giving your contacts great content they can share. When they share valuable content, it helps you build your LinkedIn network and help you get ranked as an expert.

Now the question is how to set yourself apart from the crowd? What elements make certain content shareable? Why most content fails to spark any interest among users?

Listed below are some tips to help you to create powerful content to share on LinkedIn. These tips will help you attract interest, followers and spread your content far and wide:

Dynamic Content

Visitors to webpages, including LinkedIn are offered different titles to click on. To be able to attract potential traffic, it is crucial to create intriguing titles that make visitors inquisitive. Make sure you don't mislead visitors with your titles. If you do so, they will lose interest and trust. It is like promise one thing and delivering another. The power of a good title never fails to work. Research has revealed that most people read the body copy after going through interesting title. So focus on creating killer titles by using numbers and attractive adjectives (Absolute, Free, Strange, Essential, Incredible, Effortless), use "Why" and "How", promise something valuable to your potential customers, etc. In short, you can use a formula: Number + Provoking Adjective + Keyword (SEO ) + Promise Valuable.
For instance, if you wish to include keyword – "hair supplement", try adding a title - "7 Incredible Benefits of Using Hair Supplements."

Know your Audience

Who are you writing for? In case, you are trying to expand your customer base, know as much as you can about them. Also know their age, educational background, the kind of shoppers they are. This piece of information will help you customize your articles as per their specific needs and expectations. The key is to use their language. Talk about things they like and what interests them the most.

Be Unique Be You

LinkedIn visitors usually get bored to lots of content of the same kind. If you are looking for followers and popularity, focus on standing out. So start off by brainstorming things related to your niche. Always think outside of the types of kinds of articles you usually write. Try promoting your products and services through interesting stories. You may show the way in which customers use your products. Post pictures to help customers know how your products are helpful.

YouTube Videos are Helpful

Although Facebook has taken necessary measures to discourage people from posting YouTube videos or videos from any other third-party platform on its network, LinkedIn is still helpful. It plays YouTube clips in Newsfeeds without any problem. These videos, play directly on the platform. Hence, your audience does not require leaving their feed and load different page altogether to watch the video.

Repurpose Content

It is true that you may wish to promote posts that link back to your brand site. However, you must understand that anything that helps or benefits your existing/potential customer will, in turn, help your brand. This is regardless of the source it comes from. Studies have revealed that buyers chose a company that provided useful information and helped them during the process of purchasing. Hence, if you find a new report from a different source that might be helpful to your followers, simply share it. For instance, an article, a video, or an image that abides by the interest of your customer should be shared and even linked to a relevant blog post from your organization. Regardless the source of the content, if it helps, educates or entertains your audience, they will be thankful for it.

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7 Biggest Myths About Pinterest Marketing – Busted!

Have you been marketing on Pinterest? Well, this is definitely the 'in' thing to do while you plan on promoting your business online. Pinterest may seem to be a cute little platform, females oriented, and pink, but recently, it has shown a lot of value and power. It has emerged as a very powerful platform for marketing. Employing its power results in harnessing high-quality traffic.

Unfortunately, this dynamic and incredibly operational platform carries around a lot of myths. Here's a list of the biggest myths surrounding Pinterest and the reasons you need to come over these:

Yet Another Platform, Another Headache

It is not a headache! Pinterest is a super easy platform to gain presence on owing to its facility of jumpstarting profile within a few hours! A fabulous platform, it promotes online content sharing. So there's no need to create tons of content to be of Pinterest.

You can easily kick-start by curating content from varied sources. The network offers a wealth of content available. Simply, find what’s worth sharing with your audience. Pinterest serves as a network armed with built-in content. All you need to do is identify a few major interests of your audience and generate themed boards. Thereafter, pin amazing imagery, content and crucial tips.

Only Women Oriented Business Works Here

Well, according to studies and research, it has been revealed that fairer sex makes for around 62 per cent of total Pinterest users. However, this isn't the fixed ratio. In fact, the statistic is changing. And the best part is that even if you have 38 per cent of male users on Pinterest, that makes for roughly 20 million men! You can make the most of Pinterest by attracting both male and female followers. Focus on giving value to your audience and everything else will fall into place.

Visual Business Works Best on Pinterest

No. Your business doesn't have to be visual to offer the best value to users on Pinterest. It is easy to share inspirational boards, various checklists and tips related to your niche on Pinterest and these do really well online. You may think about various ways to create the best of visual content sans displaying your offering directly.

Yet Another Social Media Channel

Most people believe that Pinterest is another social media-channel. However, it is more than just about being social. It may be used by your customers as a source of inspiration, self-expression tool, or even a tool for building strategy. Repining something from your business by someone is a clear indication that he/she is doing it for swiping the image to his/her own curated board. This is not for socializing with your company. It means that the individual likes what's posted.

Only Limited Insights to Audiences’ Interests

There is no easy way to get a deeper insight to the audience's interests than having a look at best-performing boards and pins. Another best way is to generate some curated boards. Thereafter, you can invite Pinterest followers to collaborate with you on a board. This will help you get an idea on what interests them and establish a deeper connection between potential customers and your brand.

There's No Real Business Value

Did you know Pinterest users are some of the most active shoppers online? Yes, they spend more money and time shopping online. They do it more frequently as compared to traffic from all other social networks. Also Pinterest has now rolled out the best of advertising opportunities for various brand pages.

So if you own a business (local shop), simply exploit the geotagging abilities on Pinterest. It is a cool platform for any business. All you need to do is being creative and engage your audience. This will give brilliant results.

Pinterest is Time Consuming

Marketing with Pinterest is only highly beneficial for all! It is one of the easiest social media channels,  one can participate in. Most successful marketers have confessed that they can manage their account in only a few minutes a day!

Yes, unlike other social media channels, there's absolutely no need to log in daily. One of the best things is that popular pins can get re-pinned for several months together after they were first shared. Hence, there's no compulsion of logging on daily for Pinterest traction. Apart from traffic generation and brand awareness, Pinterest can be used as a way to organize important resources. Bloggers can make the process of monitoring, useful data and blog posts easier with Pinterest.

For knowing more about Pinterest and reaping the best benefits out of it, simply spend a few minutes a day on it. You will actually be surprised to know how easy and fun the whole process is.

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10 Social Media Podcasts to Take Your Marketing Skills to the Next Level

In case, you  have not been listening to any social media, podcasts, it is high time to start now. Podcasts have attained a lot of popularity in the last few years. From smartphone to various wearable technologies, Podcasts are widely used for marketing. This audio power has certainly made its way to the marketer's heart. The trend has been adopted by the best and brightest minds in the field of marketing. Most professionals, news lovers and students have already considered it a perfect entertainment and information staple.

If you  are a marketer and new to the podcast technology, here is a list of the best and widely appreciated, marketing podcasts to help you take your marketing skills to the next level:

The Art of Paid Traffic with Rick Mulready

Rick Mulready, social media marketing expert created a highly successful podcast, “Inside Social Media: Small Business Social Media Strategies for Today’s Entrepreneur” in the year 2014. Later on, in 2015 he added a few new elements and introduced another version in 2015, “The Art of Paid Traffic.” Topics covered include different ways of using paid traffic for boosting business growth, such as Facebook ads, YouTube ads, Twitter ads, etc. Each episode lasts for about 15 minutes and offers in-depth information on paid traffic topic. Rick aims at helping listeners gain detailed information on paid traffic strategies or tips.

Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield is a very popular Facebook marketing expert, author and online entrepreneur. She would take a topic and break it down in incredible ways. Many brands (even personal) are eager for gaining knowledge on various ways to make money from their online efforts. Amy knows this and has even undertaken it successfully. Amy emphasises on various actionable lead-generation strategies in her podcast. She also offers tips on how to grow an email list. Marketers can get tips on turning clients into dedicated advocates.

Build Your Tribe with Chalene Johnson

Apart from her fame for top-selling Beach Body workout DVD programs, she is also renowned as a social media and business coach! Her podcast, “Build Your Tribe with Chalene Johnson,” is very inspirational. Chalene is a passionate and motivational speaker which will be a great help for you to pump up the business.

TwitterSmarter by Madalyn Sklar

The podcast is dedicated to Twitter. Madalyn Sklar interviews impressive movers and shakers in the world of social media and online marketing. These interviews are aimed at discovering the best Twitter insights, resources and information. This is a perfect podcast for those who are into Twitter chats. Solar hosts weekly #TwitterSmarter chat. This chat helps with connecting, learning about, and sharing Twitter tips.

Hashtagged by Jordan Powers

The podcast is all about Instagram. Jordan Powers interviews Instagram community member in each episode, aiming at uncovering insights to the following:

Growing a following
Making an impact
Building a community

Manly Pinterest Tips with Jeff Sieh

In this podcast mainly for everything about Pinterest, Jeff Sieh explores best practices, strategies, and demonstrations with several Power Pinners. Once in a while, Jeff will cover other social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram too.

The Art of Paid Traffic by Rick Mulready

In The Art of Paid Traffic, Rick Mulready reveals the best paid traffic tips, tactics, and strategies for generating leads and sales on autopilot for your business. Together with expert guests such as Massimo Chieruzzi, founder & CEO of AdEspresso, Rick dives into Facebook ads, YouTube ads, Twitter ads, Google Adwords, retargeting, and more.

Perpetual Traffic by Keith Krance, Molly Pittman, and Ralph Burns

This podcast covers all actionable strategies; primarily for Facebook advertising. It also has occasional mentions the following and the like:

- Twitter
- YouTube
- Google AdWords
- LinkedIn

You will also gain a lot of interviews of business owners by Keith, Molly and Ralph. These business owners will narrate their tryst with struggles with digital marketing and online advertising and how  they overcame each.

Social Media Pubcast with Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer invites industry experts in every episode of Social Media Pubcast. This starts a discussion over a beer on Facebook marketing and advertising. Jon also records audio versions of all of his blog posts for those who wish to listen on the go. Jon also manages an exclusive community for ardent Facebook marketers.

Community Signal

This social media podcast by Patrick O’Keefe is a weekly offer for community professionals. It has  completely focused on community. According to Patrick O’Keefe, social media is one of the best set of tools for building a community. He also believes that marketing attracts new customers while community serves as an important tool to preserve them.

Support Ops by Chase Clemons

Social media managers receive support requests on almost all of their social channel. In case, you wish to get the best of support requests, Support Ops is just the right choice for you! This is a weekly podcast that helps you to deliver support experience for your clients.

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10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Make Money on Twitter

There are a huge number of ways to make money on the internet. Although all of them are not created equal, Twitter will offer you excellent opportunities than so as to generate additional income. Interestingly, many have even made immensely successful careers out of the money made with Twitter. There's absolutely no need to be a social media wizard to mimic the success of these individuals. You simply require applying a certain amount of creativity and passion to carry it out.

Twitter is an amazing social media network for the modern day users. It has already gained over three hundred million users since its launch in the year 2006. Most users are businesses. Twitter is widely used for staying abreast with consumers' interests / demands and give them messages related to deals and brands.

Personal users use Twitter for promoting careers, services and even partners. So if you have the skill and passion, and are a talented Twitter user, exploit this platform to make money! Here, it is very important to be a good marketer yourself. You should also be an expert in marketing for others and staying in touch with the latest trends and current events.

Focus on being an adept Twitter user. It is not possible to make a lot of money on Twitter as a rudimentary user or with mediocre skills. Make sure you are really good at getting followers to your accounts. Try using several accounts together and creating catchy tweets.

Listed below are some real good ways to make money on Twitter:

1. Crowdsource

Crowdsourcing can be defined as the best practice for soliciting ideas and contributions from a large community or a group. The technique has been adored and vouched for by online marketing experts for years together. Crowsource is a star in the field of social media. It makes for a super effective way to attract contributions with Twitter from followers (new and old). This way, you can effectively fund your business or idea. The process is especially useful in combination with another process such as the Kickstarter. Crowdsourcing can actually help you to make you plenty of money, or at least capital. However, you must focus on doing it correctly. Also make sure you read up on plenty of successful case studies prior to actually attempting to start your first project.

2. Business Account

You need to use Twitter for your business account. Since social media accounts are perfect for website lead generation, you can use a lead capture strategy or give away Twitter-only deals to be able to make money. Also give away free content or a free trial for your followers. Once the user clicks a Twitter link and signs up for an account this giveaway can be sent their way. You can also earn good money via getting in touch with these leads through emails. Also attach product offers specifically targeted to their interests. In case, you have a product to sell on your website, use Twitter as a way to reach out to potential customers. All you need to do is engage in discussions on various relevant topics and integrate links to your products. A lot of e-commerce companies are using Twitter for offering special deals and advance opportunities to nab all popular products.

3. Sponsored Tweets

These are a very popular ad service specifically made for Twitter, which allows users to set their own price-per-click for ads that are tweeted. It is possible to select the best from these ads tweeted from a list of available ads updated on a regular basis. You must have at least the following listed to be able to sign up and benefit from this service:

- 50 followers
- 100 tweets
- An account (at least 60 days old)

4. Sell Services

One of the best ways to make money on Twitter is to sell services! Most professionals prefer using Twitter as one of the best ways to stay in touch with other people in their industry. This is the brand new way of networking that facilitates user to develop new associations, partnerships and sell themselves to do the work. In case, you are not comfortable with promoting yourself from your professional account, don't worry. Simply take it as a common practice. You must get into the habit of little self promotion which is crucial to quickly lead to a job.

5. Ad.ly

This is yet another ad service that allows you to send out advertisements in your tweets. It will not give you paid-per-click. You will create an impressive profile of your interests to allow advertisers choose your account for publicizing a campaign. You should also agree to send out a specific number of tweets. This needs to be done on a specific schedule to be able to get paid a lump sum amount.

6. Tweet Swapping

Yes, you can actually barter with it! In case, you are not really comfortable being a merchant partnering with affiliate marketers, you may still turn your Twitter following into sales. Here, it is important to consider a non-cash, barter exchange with various other users with significant followings. You need to tweet about their website or business. Thereafter, it is their turn to return the favor for you. Remember that Tweet Swapping is not for everyone. You need to be creative and find a unique way to generate a little buzz. Try exposing your business to various new potential customers sans spending any money.

7. Rev Twt

This is a very popular Twitter-based advertising service which offers a beneficial pay-per-click platform. All you need is a good reputation and followers. The more followers you have and higher the reputation you have, the greater are the chances for your access to high-paying campaigns. All payouts are made via PayPal as soon as you reach $20 in earnings.

8. Twittad

The popular Twittad  platform is known to be one of the first sponsored-tweet networks. It allows you to set your own cost-per-click. However, you must wait for advertisers to accept your bid. You must also identify your niche to help advertisers match their products with you in the best way! All payments are made via PayPal as soon as you have reached $30 in earnings.

9. Tweet Adder Affiliate Program

You can join the affiliate program for this brilliant Twitter marketing and management software. It includes detailed tutorials and strategy guides to help you get started. Affiliates can easily earn around 50 per cent commission on direct sales referred to the program.

10. Build Links

Yes, one of the most valuable things you can achieve from Twitter activity is a link to your website(s). Here, no money is bartered for a link, but users can enjoy some real clear indirect benefits. For instance, the links to your content will expose brand new audiences to your website. This helps you to move up the search rankings too. When done in a correct way, Twitter may work as an amazing tool for highlighting the content that you had published on the World  Wide Web and inspiring other users to send links to it. The process ensures a significant payoff down the road because it results in more number of visitors and potential customers.

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