Big news here at AIMS! We have added a new member to our staff! Everyone please welcome our new Marketing Assistant, Emily Pick.
Emily joins our team primarily as a copywriter and editor, but will also be helping with social media, design and other business functions. She is a 2010 graduate of the University of Oregon having received her degree in Human Physiology. In the past, she has worked as a freelance copywriter, crafting original content and press releases for various businesses.
Outside of work, Emily is very fitness oriented and loves to travel. She is also a very big Oregon athletics fan (Go Ducks!). Her favorite international city is Istanbul, Turkey for its beautiful architecture and amazing food (although Jamaica and its beaches rank a close second!). She ran her first half-marathon in the summer of 2013, and is looking forward to getting her feet wet with her first triathlon in July of 2014.
Emily is here at AIMS to learn more about the business of marketing and is looking forward to helping incorporate the use of analytics into our social marketing strategy. With her help, we are hoping to grow our clientele base and continue to put out a quality product that is both creative and refreshing.
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!
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.
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.
“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.
As a small business owner, you know the importance of connecting with your customers – it’s what So what are you doing to connect with yours?
helps you reel in the new and keep the old.
Ask any teenager and they will tell you social media is the wave of the future. It’s something most of you already know, but just as important as knowing is making use of that information.
Building a brand is no easy feat, but social media can help.
Why Social Media Marketing?
It’s all about reach. Check out the stats:
Social media serves to connect you with millions of potential clients on a variety of platforms in various ways.
One of the beautiful things about social media is that its users aren’t stationary; you’re not waiting for them to come home and check their email — we live in a mobile world, and lucky for you, social media does too. In 2013 alone, 751 million users accessed Facebook from over 7,000 different devices. Talk about reach!
Have A Plan
Of course, just registering your business on Google+ or Twitter won’t guarantee an influx of new clients or sales. You have to have a plan, and you have to be committed.
If you are planning on doing the social media for your company, and don’t plan on employing a full time social media specialist, we recommend starting small. It is better to focus your energies on one or two platforms, than overextending yourself and not providing enough quality content for your followers. Facebook has the most reach and is great for engaging with clients, both current and potential.
At AIMS, we want to help you get connected. Contact us for more information on developing a social media strategy for your small business!
A quote that I like to use about different social media types goes like this; Twitter is like a bar sit down and talk to everyone, Facebook is like your living room more intimate but still very social, and LinkedIn is like your Chamber of Commerce where everyone is shaking hands and doing business. LinkedIn is one of the most valuable tools in social media today. It is an online representation of you as a professional. While Facebook and Twitter may garner more attention, it is LinkedIn that is built to last. Can you say the same about your profile? Here at AIMS, we want to help you project your services to the right audience. Follow our tips for making LinkedIn work for you.
LinkedIn: Tips for expanding your network
Focus In
Know what you are trying to accomplish with your LinkedIn profile. Are you seeking to grow your professional network? Looking to explore possible career opportunities? Or maybe you’re looking to join groups and interact with other likeminded professionals. Whatever the reason, for one or all, concentrate your efforts to see an increase in successful returns.
Clean Up Your Profile
Your profile is the first impression other LinkedIn users will have of you. Your background and experience information should exude confidence. It should be brief, engaging and accurate. The best profiles will make others want to interact with you; they will view it as an opportunity. Typos and grammatical errors however, are the number one turn off to potential connections. Do yourself a favor and periodically give your profile a once over to see what information needs to be edited or updated.
Join Groups That Matter to You
Groups are a great way to keep in touch with peers, learn about an area of interest or to keep up on the happenings of a specific industry. What they should not be however is a promotional tool. Not only is offensive to the group, but likely a waste of time. Pick groups that mean something to you and interact with them appropriately.
Network
Having 500+ connections does not make you a networker; face to face communication does. That doesn’t mean LinkedIn can’t serve to enhance those experiences. Check in to see just how many meaningful interactions you have initiated with your connections. Each week, you should identify several connections and send them a brief, personal message asking to connect by phone. Look for ways to help them as they move forward on their journey. You get what you put in.
Personalize Your Invitation to Connect
When requesting a connection, LinkedIn’s auto-phrase may be useful to a busy professional such as you, but it also shows a disregard for meaningful interaction. Research the individual you would like to connect with and give them a brief overview of why your connection is worth the time.
Be A Giver
No, that doesn’t mean spam each of your groups or feeds with information that may not be relevant to the topic at hand. Instead, try to choose articles and information that are of real interest to your followers. Give only materials of value to your online community.
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?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) keywords are the key phrases and words featured in your web-based content that drive search engines to direct people to your site.Keywords should be relevant to your audience and are most effective when placed in the title, headlines, and URL.Keyword stuffing is the practice of manipulating search engine results pages (SERP) by cluttering keywords onto a page regardless of the quality of content.As you can guess, this often leads to a less than desirable user experience.
The dangers of over-optimizing
Search engines are wising up to the keyword stuffing trick. Google has taken to penalizing offenders by demoting their rankings and even removing some altogether.Matt Cutts of Google announced at the 2012 SXSW that the search engine is working on an over-optimization penalty:
“We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and a great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.”
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
To sum it up I think Agency Revolutions says it nicely, “it’s best to focus on providing quality content to readers, instead of optimizing website text to a specific keyword density”.
What do you think – should we stuff the content with as many keywords as possible or just stick with the old saying, Content is King?
If you were in Chicago a few weeks ago then you already know about the new Disaster Preparedness Center. But for everyone who did not make it to the conference you are in for a treat. Check out Bancorp Insurance Wildfire Disaster Preparedness Page. Looks pretty good right! Now what if you could have a page just like this for;
Flood
Earthquake
Blizzard
Tsunami
Tornado
Hurricane
Volcano
Well it is your lucky day because you already have a site just like Bancorp Insurance Disaster Preparedness Center waiting for you on your website. All you need to do is type this into your Firefox browser – www.YourWebsiteHere.com/research-center/disaster-preparedness-center. (In case you just copied and pasted remember to change “YourWebsiteHere” to your personal websites URL.)
Now that you know that this awesome page is on your site you need to change the content in it to be local and agency specific. If you want even more from your Disaster Preparedness Center start implementing the #Disaster Preparedness – Phases in your Engine. If you have any questions about implementing this campaign on your website or your engine contact your vendor or give me a call at 401-400-AIMS.
Have fun developing your New Disaster Preparedness Center!
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
