A new year means new trends in social media and content marketing! At AIMS, Our goal for the New Year is to stay on top of the latest developments so that we may better serve our clients and help them to grow their online followings.

How do we intend to do this? By keeping up on industry news, notes and insider information.  We hope to see you throughout the year at various conferences and events!

Check out our New Year’s resolutions:

1. Start using Google Analytics  

SEO is constantly evolving, and today, it is much more than just implementing a few keywords and crafting an effective title and meta-tags.  Google wants more, and we want to give it to them and in turn, give it to you. 

Google Analytics will help us to better analyze who is viewing your page, and how they got there.
 

2. Keeping up on Social Media 

It seems like most every day we are reading some new article or another about how the “free ride” is over for social media marketing. We don’t think that is entirely true, but we are very interested in learning more about paid campaigns and how to best implement them. Look for us to take a step forward in 2014 into the worlds of Google AdWords and Bing Ads.

3. Create new content on a regular basis 

At the end of the day, it all comes down to content. We want to continue to create fresh new content to help drive viewers to your websites. More content will help with numbers 1 and 2, and will help us get a better idea of what is working and what isn’t.

For those of you planning to party down this week, here are 5 quick tips for proper social media party etiquette:

1. Know the Rules 

Posting photos from a holiday gathering to one of your company’s social media accounts is a great way to humanize your business. Too often we’re seen as walking, talking drones; show your customers that you are more than that.

The catch? You need to check in on your company’s social media policies to be sure that what you are planning to post is appropriate. 

2. Ask Permission 

Before your bust out the iPhone for an impromptu photo shoot be sure that the people in the photographs are comfortable with their picture going on line. 

3. Help the Brand, Don’t Hurt It 

No booze-y pics, misspellings, or auto-corrects. Photos should be high quality and limited to a select few. 

Once you’ve posted, whether it is a prepared quote from the evening or a picture of you and the boss, keep an eye on your comments section or mentions and be at the ready to delete at a moment’s notice. 

4. Tagging

Do not tag any of your co-workers using their personal social media accounts. Putting a name to a face is great, but leave them their privacy. A good rule of thumb is to never post something online that you don’t want anyone else to see, but hey, some of us still have a few photos of that last college pub-crawl hanging around, and do you really want your clients to see that?

5. Say “Thanks” 

Tis’ the season to express gratitude, so give a shout out to those responsible for putting on such a killer holiday party – sponsors, hosts, caterers! A little “thank-you” goes a long ways.  We at AIMS want to wish you a Happy Holiday!

Source – 10 Tips for Proper Social Media Etiquette

If you’ve been keeping up with the AIMS blog lately, then you know we’re all about
social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram – we love it all. Social media is
one of the most effective marketing tools that a small business can use to connect
directly with consumers.

Today, we want to talk to you about Twitter and how retweets help to gain your
content interest.

Why Retweets are Important

Retweets haven’t always been a thing; in fact, it wasn’t until nearly three and a half
years after Twitter’s launch that the retweet button was added. Back in the day if
you liked a tweet enough to share it, you had to do it manually, which meant typing
“RT” followed by the “@” symbol and user name of the original tweeter. FINALLY,
you had to copy/paste the thought you wanted to share.

Today though, it’s different; retweets run Twitter.

How do you know that you’ve crafted an engaging tweet? It’s been retweeted, and
not just once, but multiple times. The more you’ve been retweeted, the wider your
audience and the greater your exposure.

Increase Your Retweets

So now that you know why retweets are important, let’s work on your tweet
strategy.

Trackmaven recently released the results of a study they conducted that analyzed
1,423 Twitter accounts, 1.7 million tweets, and the impact of using visuals within
tweets.

The Retweet Report (© Trackmaven) is exhaustive at 23 pages long, but is chock full
of valuable information for stepping up your tweet game. Save yourself some
reading time and check out our list of The Retweet Reports’s most valuable tips for
increasing your exposure on Twitter.

Tweet on Sunday – Roughly 85% of all tweets are sent out on weekdays, but they
are more likely to be retweeted on Sundays than any other day of the week.
Thursday is your next best bet, with Friday being the worst.

Tweet After-Hours – Twitter is at its most active during regular business hours, but
that is not the most likely time for a retweet. That honor belongs to the evening and
the10 o’clock. It may be intuitive, but don’t expect too many retweets between the
hours of 12 A.M. and 7 A.M.

#Hashtag – Not everyone understands hashtags or their importance in the social
media world, but make no mistake, they matter. A hashtage is the “#” sign followed
by a word or phrase that helps to identify the purpose of your tweet. A tweet with
no hashtags is far less likely to be retweeted than one with 5, which was found to be
the optimal number.

End with a Link – Planning to link your tweet? Position matters. A tweet with the
link 90% of the way through the tweet is the most likely to be retweeted.
Use Images – Tweets with a picture are 3 times more likely to be retweeted than
those without.

GET EXCITED!!!!! – TYPE IN CAPITALS AND USE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! Twitter users respond to emotion, they want to know that this is something you are excited
about and they should be too.

When it comes to Internet marketing, everyone is looking to get ahead. With so much saturation, and so

many people offering the same thing, it is important to make your company stand out.

You probably chose to visit us today because you are looking increase traffic to the website of your insurance company or small business. While we offer many solutions, the idea we are presenting this week is Content Marketing. 

So what exactly is content marketing? Content Marketing Institute defines it as

“The marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

At AIMS, we devote a portion of our time each week to creating original insurance based content that our clients can use to educate their current customers and to help draw in new ones.

The topics vary, but are generally helpful hints and tips to help make life easier, although, we do make attempts to tie in current events as they relate to the insurance industry.

We don’t believe in keyword stuffing, not only is it black hat, but also it doesn’t work. Google has gotten smarter: they like fresh content, they like originality, and they like a quality product. While we’re not quite sure how the algorithm works (like anyone but the developers and engineers at Google do), we do know, and there is data to back it up, that one of the best ways to reach the first page of Google’s search results is with constant, quality content.

Now you may be asking, how do I get started? Our best advice is to start a blog and update it weekly. Whether you write it, or you hire out to someone like us to write it, the important thing is to get your name out there, and backlink to your site.

What you write is up to you, just know that people like pictures and they like personality – show them the human side to your small business.

helps you reel in the new and keep the old.

Why Social Media Marketing?

Have A Plan

LinkedIn: Tips for expanding your network 

Focus In

Clean Up Your Profile 

Join Groups That Matter to You 

Network

Personalize Your Invitation to Connect

Be A Giver

Why over saturation is a danger to your business

Recently I have been helping a few of my clients update their website niche pages. I enjoy creating informational content that is easy to read and location specific but was reminded that sometimes good content is not everything. An example of this is I was asked to put 4 keywords in a 300 word document at least 3 times each. Not hard right? Well make sure they have the name of the company as well as the location of the company attached to each keyword and suddenly your page starts to sound a little strange. I was not writing for the reader anymore I was writing for the computer. What is more important? I am not sure, but I decided to do some research on keyword stuffing to educate myself on finding that true balance of great content and SEO keyword optimization. What I found is keyword stuffing was once standard industry practice is now considered a strictly black-hat tactic. 

What is keyword stuffing?                                                      

The dangers of over-optimizing

Tips for inserting keywords safely

Keyword stuffing is only a short term solution to driving up the usage on your site, and as stated above, can be risky business. Check out these tips for inserting keywords safely.

• Is there are magic number for keyword density? Some say yes, others no. 2-5% is considered a safe bet.
• Use long-tail keywords to spice up your content. 
•  Long tail keywords are longer, more specific keywords
• Try implementing synonyms
• Google will now bold synonyms in search results – by helping Google stay relevant, sites implementing synonyms are often rewarded

• Flood
• Earthquake
• Blizzard
• Tsunami
• Tornado
•  Hurricane
• Volcano

I want to thank everyone who attended the Facebook for Small Businesses Lunch and Learn hosted by the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce and myself. For anyone who wants a refresher or missed the event here is a video link to the slide show on some of the items we went over.
Thanks Again
Cheri