Creating Effective Social Media - 5 Easy Steps to Creating Social Media That Reaches Your Target

Effectively creating a social media presence is not as hard as it seems. Use five easy steps to improve your online presence now.

1. Know your target audience: You know your customer (or you should) - that's your audience. All audiences have diversity: age, economic background, style, and interest areas. Now, when you create content, do it as if you are directly speaking to them. Start a conversation. Spark your target's imagination. Use humor and remember that being too formal can seem inauthentic. Don't forget to be online with your audience. Explore what they talk about, what they like, what they share, what they hashtag. Interact to get to know them. Tip: use hashtags to research the climate around a topic and see what's trending.

2. Intentionally set boundaries: After you have visualized your target audience you will need to set up "Go" and "No-Go" areas for your content. These parameters are simplistic yet, paramount. Setting social media boundaries will help you keep your target group happy. Your goal is to create content that is professional and pleasing to your audience. Remember, what is appropriate for one audience, may not be relevant for another. Areas to carefully consider: politics, profanity, slang verbiage, etc.

3. Find a graphics tools that work for you: Creating graphics will serve you well, as visuals are an integral part of all social media platforms. Even Twitter is now more visually based; they have made it easier than ever to share graphics and animated gifts, right at the point of creation. You can put your best visual foot forward by utilizing any purchased, or free, graphic software like Adobe Suite (purchased) or Pixler (free). You will want to research which programs work best with your skill level; there are many online to explore.

4. Consider your platform: Create visual content with limited text, to show/say something significant and inspirational. Know what rules apply to the platform you are using. For example, Twitter limits you to 140 characters or less. These rules will shape your content. Research platform parameters online to familiarize yourself with each structure.

5. Use color: Don't forget to utilize color; it draws the eye! You can also create a theme of colors that you will use to represent your brand. Using colors enhances what someone feels, for example, Greens and Blues are said to create trust and a fresh feeling, while yellows, reds, and oranges are said to excite, or even make the viewer hungry (think fast food chains). Create content that welcomes your audience to take a closer look. Tip: add your logo to most of the content you create.

By using the five steps above: knowing your audience, setting boundaries, optimizing graphics, mastering platforms, and through utilizing color, you are well on your way to creating social media that effectively reaches your target.

Stephanie Newby is the owner of Newgreenie, an Entrepreneur, Writer, Current Graduate Student and Social Media Enthusiast. Webmasters and other article publishers are hereby granted article reproduction permission if this article is shared in its entirety, author's information, and any links remain intact. Copyright 2017 by Stephanie Newby, Newgreenie. http://www.newgreenie.com

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Four Content Marketing Ideas You Should Try Out

Content marketing is one of the most profitable ways to showcase your business to the web. By creating high-quality content, your website will gain more backlinks from other websites, thus boosting your rankings in Google search results. With pieces of content, you can build a bigger audience to your website through social media, also. The more traffic you can pull into your website, the more people will avail of your products or services.

For a website only starting out in content marketing, it can be a daunting challenge to start producing content worthy of backlinks. In this article, we'll check out four ideas for content marketing. If you like a certain type of article, you can start experimenting with that on your blog to see if it pulls in any traffic.

In this article, we'll take a look at types of content which is popular on the web today.

1. List Based Article  -  One of the most popular news websites is Buzzfeed, which creates list based articles. Recent studies into online marketing have shown that customers tend to click on titles with a number at the beginning. Perhaps, having a number in the title consolidates the amount of information. It also gives a quick overview on the number of items the reader can scan through.

Examples of these titles include:

• 6 Reasons Your Swimming Pool Has Algae

• 5 Exciting Themes for Your Next Party/Occasion

• 7 Durable Apple iPhone Cases We Adore

• 4 Ways To Clear Viruses From Your PC

As you can see, these titles help make it easy for the reader to click on and this can boost your click-through rates on Google search results.  Coming up with list based articles is easy, if you know a lot about your website's niche. Just because your niche is in motoring or mechanics or window cleaning, it doesn't mean you can't create content on it. Broaden your scope and focus on the practicalities of your niche and key information consumers would like to know.

2. Infographic  -  Infographics are the latest trend and they can help you attract more traffic and backlinks to your website. An infographic does what it states in the title. It is a graphic which contains information. In a typical infographic, you can display statistics, facts, figures and images within the graphic. Infographics have seen recent popularity in the last few years, especially with the rise of Pinterest and photo sharing sites. You don't need to be a graphic designer to create an infographic. In fact, you can create one through websites such as http://www.venngage.com or http://www.piktochart.com. All these tools are free and offer templates. All you have to do is insert your facts and statistics into the template, and you will have a ready-made infographic!

Once you've created your infographic, you can ask other websites in your niche to display it or link to the infographic on their website. That way, you are gaining backlinks to your website. If you still want to create a textual article out of the article, just post the text of the infographic to your blog, and you will have a text article, also. If your infographic's title is catchy and promises useful information, your infographic could garner hundreds of shares on social media, and many backlinks. Some infographics have even gone viral, resulting in millions of viewers. While that is very rare, it is quite possible that your infographic could attract new customers from both Google search results and from social media.

3. A How-To Article  -  This type of web article focuses on showing the viewer how to do something, whether it's about baking cookies, or cleaning dust from their car's interior. The scope can be very broad or it can be very narrow, depending on your niche. Before you create titles for your articles, put a list of keywords through the Google Keyword Planner.

There are many guides online which show you how to do this, but I most recommend Backlinko's Guide to finding profitable keywords with this tool. When you have found keywords with the planner that get more than 2000 searches per month, you can turn these keywords into titles. Some examples could include:

• How To Bake Cookies In 10 Minutes: A Quicker Method

• How To Clear Your PC of Adware In Thirty Minutes

• How To Track Your Ancestry Using Online Research

When you are writing the article, you can keep the steps brief and concise. This is one of the advantages of the "how-to" article; there is no need to write long, winding passages. As long as you clearly state the steps in a concise way and the steps will help the reader, you have created a valuable asset for the online world.  Your article will start ranking alongside other guides, but if there is little competition, it might start ranking immediately.

Conclusion  -  Those who use content marketing as part of their business strategy will start seeing results in a few months. The effects of writing content may take a while to see, but once traffic starts to increase, you can expect that traffic to keep streaming in throughout the months.  Content Marketing Ideas You Should Try Out by Keith Pattison - It is now accepted by most that content marketing is one of the most beneficial ways to showcase your business on the Internet and for many promoting a new web based business can prove a daunting prospect. If you are a busy small business looking to promote your business, the creation and dissemination of original and quality content can help drive customer engagement, increase company profile and help market your business to the widest possible audience.

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5 Tips To Turn Website Visitors Into Customers

There are millions of websites. This is both an opportunity and a challenge. Think about the websites you buy from. You buy from businesses you know. You buy from businesses that you like because that have created a good impression. You buy from businesses that you trust and represent credibility and authority.

Your customers buy for the same reasons. They buy from buy from websites that they know, like and can trust.

Here are 5 tips that will help to turn your website visitors into customers.

1. Create Easy Navigation

It sounds simple, but a lot of websites are a navigational nightmare. When a visitor can't find what they need quickly and easily, they leave. You have to make prospects feel comfortable when they visit your website. Remember who your target audience are and what they're looking for. You can't create a website to suit everyone, so don't confuse visitors by trying to sell everything to everybody.

2. Do Your Keyword Research

Your visitors discover your site with keywords. That means those same keywords need to be present on your site and easy to find. When you know what your prospects are looking for, you can provide it. Providing top quality content will set you apart from the majority of your competition.

3. Check Analytics

Analytics help you track where your visitors go on your website. They tell you how long people stay on a single web page, what keywords they use to find your website and how many visitors return to your website.This information is invaluable. Get into the habit of checking your website analytics regularly. Create content and navigation systems that support your findings.

4. Have Impulse Buys

Your website visitors can behave in the same way just like when you put items into your grocery basket when you are near the checkout in a store. These impulse buys help turn website visitors into buyers. Put bonus products at the end of your web page articles or blog posts. These are the online version of the impulse buy. They might resist your major product only to be hooked by your extra offers.

5. Be Consistent And Be Yourself

Consistency establishes a strong brand. If you keep changing your style, tone and delivery from communication to communication, your prospects and customers can become confused. However, if you're consistently thoughtful, funny, controversial, or serious then your brand will get stronger. This includes social networking interactions, email, articles and content, video and interviews.

If you have a product or service that you're selling online then you'll want to take every opportunity to get more website traffic. An online business thrives and survives based on their traffic. The more traffic you have, the more potential customers you have. To learn how you can boost your website traffic without spending a fortune go to http://jonallo.com/how-to-boost-website-traffic/

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What Blogging Is All About

What is blogging?

Blogging is a personal web log, in which a person would journal about their day. The word "Blog" was derived from the words "web log" combined. Many entrepreneurs notice a great marketing potential in having a blog, and blogging began at that point of time. A blog can not only be used for marketing, but also, a home business or a personal opinionated platform.

Aren't Blogs the same as Websites?

The difference between a blog and a website is that Blogs are updated frequently while websites are not. Even if it's the simplest of blogs, an update is MUST on a daily basis for it to run smoothly. Blogs are also used for a more social approach to interact with other users and structure opinions to improve business and marketing strategies.

Advantages of Blogging

• It's totally free of cost! There are many platforms on the web that provide a free interface for users to create and post a blog post.

• Blogging is a great way to completely utilize your skills to showcase your ideas and have the flexibility to improve yourself through reviews, or comments left in by viewers or subscribers. It's like learning new things without any risk! (As long as ethical and legal issues do not involve) Great right? You can improve your thinking and writing skills through this and make sure you develop in a risk free platform.

• Some blogging sites may offer wages depending on the views and popularity as well as the quality of your blog content

Disadvantages of blogging

There aren't major downsides to blogging, but blogging takes a lot of dedication and time to take and maintain the structure and flow of a popular and quality assured blog to attract the viewers and keep it going. More updates means, more ideas to update about. You have to have a constant idea and plan of what to write about in your next blog in order to keep the flow maintained. Blogs take time in becoming popular or well known, as well as the wages that are possibly paid can depend upon the quality, the popularity and the effect over public social media over time, which can get a bit frustrating. So above all, patience and hard work are main key factors that are needed for a person to maintain a good blog and to keep the viewers satisfied. It is one of the important things to remember.

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The 5 Keys to a Successful Online Business

Introduction  As with any other business, a successful online business too must have deep foundations based on these 5 key principles.

1. Targeted Advertising  Advertising online is now more powerful than ever.You can easily find and reach a very targeted audience for your offers and have people visiting your website in minutes! With many platforms now offering a functionality called pay-per-click (PPC) i.e. Google, Bing, Facebook, YouTube and Amazon, picking the right platform for you and your business is key.

If you are just starting out, consider at most 2 strategies only and master them. As tempting as it is to 'jump' around and see what works, you will save yourself valuable time, money and overwhelm, the latter usually comes from information overload. Have a clear understanding of who your ideal customer is and consider where they 'hang out' online before choosing an advertising platform.

2. Lead Generating Websites  Websites are not what they used to be a few years ago.You might find it hard to believe but those pretty websites where we used to visit and browse around looking at how company X products and services look and 'feel' don't work for sales! There is too much distraction happening and information overload does not help your prospect move closer to a buying decision, which is essentially what you want.

The technical term for the website you want to create is a Lead Capture Website.Other techie terms used interchangeably for the same is a squeeze page or opt-in page. These sites are 1 page only.

A well-designed page should 'tell' your prospect 2 things only! What you are giving the and what they need to do now that they are on your page. No other distractions allowed, not even your other cool products and your social media news-feeds.

The human attention span is down to 8 seconds; the goldfish in my tank has 9 or 10. Instagram is said to have 68% higher engagement compared to Facebook. Why? That double tap is genius. If you hang out on Instagram you know what I am on about. Last I heard; snap chat and vine are going in for the number 1 spot... well I am guessing we might be down to 5 seconds today! Now we know we need to be quick and direct about what we are offering our prospect before they click away. After all, they've been kind enough to give us 5 seconds of their time.

3. Build A List  Without being too fancy here, the main objective is to create a fans list that like and trust you. They are happy to buy from you anytime. In fact, I heard that if you become awesome at doing it, these fans can go temperamental if you are not selling them anything.They will chase you for more stuff to buy and you better have it ready.Now that is a good problem to have.Another marketing fact is, it's cheaper to keep an existing customer than to go out and look for one.

Think about your monthly marketing budget. I certainly don't want to spend more dollars to get the same customer every other month. I'd rather have a new one and still keep the old one who wants to buy again. Investing in tools to do this is key. Auto-responders such as aweber and mailchimp can get you started on the list building process without breaking the bank.

4. Provide Overwhelming Value  Actually, this right here should read provide overwhelming value.By providing value to your prospects you will build trust and desire for your offers. This is something that every online business should aim for. This will separate you from the competition. Come up with ideas for quality free gifts that you know your prospects and/or fans will appreciate and find useful in solving a problem or at least come very close to solving one.

5. Offer Quality Products & Services  In this digital economy age, quality is NOT important, it is EVERYTHING in your business. Information is literally oozing and available to anyone anywhere anytime. Think about how much information you are exposed to digitally in a day. That said, my opinion here for anyone selling anything to anyone online is, they should make it their business to get the one-word feedback every time and that is wow.

The online marketplace is a 2-edged sword. The very thing that brings you success has the same potential to bring you failure in equal proportions. Every time I want to trust and buy something I have never bought before, my reflex action is Google and I am there looking for reviews.

Final Thought  The truth is, it has never been easier as a business to be exposed to negative feedback than it is right now. One of my social media consultants said something the other day that got me thinking. Negative feedback online hurts a big brand or a small coffee shop in exactly the same way. In fact, some big brands will avoid being 'out there' online where they can expose themselves to disgruntled customers who only need to jump on a social platform and vent out!

However with quality products, raving fans on your side, and consistent application of these 5 keys to a successful online business... Happy Days!

Wishing you success.

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