A Comprehensive Guide To Facebook Marketing

When you think Facebook, perhaps the one adjective that springs to mind is Ginormous. A social media platform that has a millions of active users with a vast majority of them that are rather diligently glued to it every single day is nothing but a cult phenomenon of sorts and you can't escape being smitten by its intrigue. If you happen to be a business owner, Facebook is pretty much a necessity for you and what may seem at first rather perplexing is in actuality simpler that you can imagine.

One of the myths that especially a business owner would hold is that facebook is for youngsters and is one of those college goers nucleus for it started out of a college by a student. That being the reality it has over the years enchanted a broad spectrum of demographics and a very mighty tool to market your enterprise. Speaking of tools brings to mind "Pages", "Groups" and "Ads" which is what you need to understand if you want to use Facebook for marketing your brand proposition.

A Facebook Page is quite like a profile, however the difference is the purpose and here it will be to promote your brand or organization and whilst there may be no limits on the number of fans you can have it may call for some hard work to build your fan base. This is by far a very simple effective and flexible way to market. The "info tab" on your facebook page is where you can lay it out and project the great things your business is into and could provide links of the company website as well, however making sure that the tone is relaxed casual and friendly at best. Keep your fan base engaged by updating useful information such as trending articles about the company or new product launches.

A Facebook Group is the same as a Forum and keeps you in sync with what's trending and is a great mechanism to reach out to a wide user base as well as enjoy an engaged audience. Groups encourage a dialogue between people and can often times serve your purpose better than a page and an active and engaging discussion is so to speak the foundation for the group to thrive in.

Creating Ads on Facebook enables you to reach a very targeted audience depending on the purpose of why the advert was made and what it were meant to accomplish and hence it allows you to create different sorts of advertisements for diverse groups.

No matter the company size you are running, Facebook allows you to choose from the very many options available to market your product and the inherent flexibility that defines Facebook is what permits it to blend well with what suits your company ideologies.

Whilst it may take some time to get to know the many features it is nonetheless a very strategic and impactful tool that enables brand consciousness and exposes you to global markets that are in many cases very difficult to penetrate. There is no point in waiting, for diving right into it and swimming your way through will get you the needed results in your marketing efforts and perfection with time!!


About The Author: Jem is fond of following the latest trends in technology especially on gadgets, Smartphones, social media, networking, internet and computers.

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Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

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UPDATE 3rd April: Now that I'm feeling much better (after being unwell for the past four weeks), normal blogging will resume Monday of next week. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this absence.

UPDATE 6th March: Due to illness, blog posts have been suspended until further notice.

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Blog Marketing Overview

Blog marketing is one of the fastest growing trends in the online arena today. Blogs, otherwise known as web logs, are online journals where individuals document information on particular subject areas. The topic for blogs can range from purely frivolous banter to the more gut-wrenching, hard core serious topics. Blog owners tend to have a section below the blog post for readers to post comments.

Starting a blog online is very easy to do. If you are unsure about how to go about creating the layout of your blog, ask a friend or someone who knows about blog creation. You can get started with many free platforms, such as Blogger or WordPress. Once you have your blog up and running, you need to decide on a topic. Individual bloggers may choose to talk about recipes, children, advice, experiences, stories, pictures, celebrities, traveling, hobbies, etc. Company blogs will vary depending on the niche, but may include posts about professional services, advice on taxes, marketing tips, negotiation tactics, employee recognition, operational consulting, running the business, making the most out of your finances, recent updates for the company, quarterly reports, etc.

Afterwards, you can then get started on marketing. You will need to employ a wide range of various skills in order to make your blog known and subsequently profit from it.

Unless you want to just have an online diary, the main purpose of a blog is to let others know about it. Typically when you first create a blog it is virtually unknown, unless you have given someone the link or have shown it to them. One of the easiest ways to generate viewership to a new blog is to permit RSS feeds to be taken from the blog. You can allow other blogs and websites to publish your blog. Bloggers tend to take advantage of RSS feeds, as it is a great tool for promoting and getting your blog out there.

The key strategy to blog marketing is to update your blog frequently. You may have the most interesting material on your blog but if no one reads it then you would have defeated the purpose of the blog. Readership is an important component of any successful blog. Set a goal for yourself and stick to it. If you advise your readers that you will be updating new posts on a weekly basis ensure that you do so. You want to keep your readers interested so that they can spread the word about your blog.

Apply SEO (search engine optimization) to your blogs. Similar to a website, a blog is more successful once it is SEO optimized. If you want your blog to go anywhere, you will need SEO. The topic of SEO is far beyond the scope of this post, but you'll be able to find lots of resources online about properly optimizing your individual posts by using strong titles, keywords, and tags.

Always be on the look-out for blogs that have similar content to yours. This is particularly useful, as not only are you checking out the "competition", but you can leave comments and attach a link with your blog information. Readers will now have the opportunity to visit your blog therefore generating more traffic for you. When commenting, be sure to actually contribute to the conversation.

Some marketing involves making a profit. Some bloggers choose to do affiliate marketing or sell ad space on their blogs. This is an easy way to make a profit from your blog. Not all bloggers wish to earn an income from blogging; some simply just do it for fun.

Depending on your preference there are a number of techniques available. Marketing is a lot of hard work and it takes up a lot of time but once executed properly, it will be well worth it and you will be rewarded with a successful blog.


Did you like this article? Please let me know by leaving me your valued comments.

Related articles:
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3 Tips For Increasing Blog Traffic
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Until my next post on Monday with a comprehensive guide to Facebook marketing, have a fabulous weekend!

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Top 5 Smart Email Marketing Tips

Many of us use email in our marketing campaigns, but not all of us are seeing the returns from the effort we'd like. Not everything (or maybe even much) of email marketing is intuitive. Need a hand? Take a look below at our top 5 email marketing tips and see your success skyrocket!


1. Don't Use Too Many Images

It's very, very important to understand email is not print advertising. Most people who receive your emails will not see your images. This means you are not only wasting time and energy designing images for your email marketing campaign but if these images are vital to your message this will be totally lost to a great many of the people receiving it. This is a very bad idea obviously. It's much better to focus your creative energy on great ad copy than on images that will likely go unseen, isn't it?


2. Highlight Your Links

The whole point of your email marketing campaign is to have your targets click through to your landing page, sales page or web page right? The best way to do this within your email is to include your link at every point you think your potential customer could be inspired to click through. In this case more is definitely better! One link per paragraph is a good guideline as well as, of course, at the very end of your email message as well.


3. Don't Hide Your Unsubscribe

One of our essential goals is to avoid having our email marketing campaigns labeled as spam. Make it easy for even the dimmest light bulb in the hallway to unsubscribe from your list and you'll be grateful later. When people have difficulty unsubscribing they will mark your message as spam, adding strikes against your sender reputation. You want unsubscribing as uncomplicated and upfront as possible.


4. Short and Sweet Text

The truth is most of your recipients are only going to scan your message for highlights that catch their eye. Bullet points and very short paragraphs work to your advantage as does bold text to highlight points and varying your font colour. Keep your messages very short and if in doubt make them shorter. The idea is to get sales, not send out books that no one will read anyway.


5. Clean Up Your Email List Frequently

Between messages remove undeliverable addresses, full in boxes and others that bounce back to you. This is not optional, but required if you want your email marketing campaign to succeed. Otherwise you'll be working with bad data as far as keeping track of responses to your campaign and greatly increase your chances of being labeled a spammer by your email provider. Stay on this - if you let it get out of hand it will equal much more work in the long run.

Smart email marketing is as much a science as it is an art. Once you lay down some foundational rules you can go crazy with all your creative savvy to hit home with your message with a much greater chance of success! Following these email marketing tips will get you off to a good start. Let us know if you have a favorite tip you'd like to add!


About The Author: Danny Duric is a blogger from Australia. He is blogging mostly about business and internet marketing.

Did you find this article helpful? Do you have any email marketing tips to share? Please let Danny and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
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Why Choose Email As A Marketing Tool?


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
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Until my next post on Friday with an overview on blog marketing, enjoy the rest of the week!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.

The Beginners Guide To Google Analytics

Whether you've tinkered around with the dashboard previously or even the term "Google Analytics" is new to you, mastering the basics of the platform is an essential part of making your website (and any attached businesses) a success. If that prospect intimidates you, don't let it. While Google Analytics can get quite complicated, there are more than enough intuitive features to keep you occupied until you've mastered the bigger ideas.

We'll provide a good introduction here, though we recommend also taking a spin through this analytics guide for a deeper look.


Just what is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is everything to do with statistics; specifically, the important statistics that tell you how many visits you're getting to your website, where visitors are coming from, who they are, and what they're doing on your site. Running and marketing a website without Google Analytics is a bit like racing a friend across the country without a map. Sure, you'll get there eventually (well, in theory), but you'll probably take a fair share of detours along the way.


Okay, I get it. But why is it good from a marketing perspective?

A better question would be how isn't it a good thing from a marketing perspective? There's little Google Analytics can't measure for you. Without going into too much detail (this is a beginner's guide, after all), here are just a few things Google Analytics can do for your website marketing efforts, whether you run an ecommerce site or a blog.


Understand who your visitors are

When you log into Google Analytics, the first place you'll land will be the Visitors Overview screen.

Here you can take a look at traffic patterns, and narrow or widen the date ranges even down to a specific day - great for examining the impact of a big marketing push on a specific day, or a speaking gig at a conference. On the left hand side of the screen you'll find an "Audience" option, which will provide basic demographic data such as language and location. In fact, if you click on specific countries in the map provided, you can zoom down to the state or regional levels.

Overall, this information should be a big boon for your online and in-person marketing efforts, as you'll gain a better sense of just where the most interested populations are located and how you might shape marketing language and content to them accordingly.


Understand where your visitors are coming from

One of the most important measures Google Analytics can provide is an overview of just where your visitors are coming from. Get a lot of visitors from Facebook? Post more to your business page. Get a lot of visitors from paid advertisements on one industry blog but not on another? Keep the one, drop the other. The more you know about how your visitors are finding you, the more strategic you can get in your campaigns. What's more, it's just a good idea to know where your visitors congregate, should you want to get creative with a different kind of campaign in that same space further down the road.

To get started with this information, head again to the bar on the left hand side of the screen - specifically, to "traffic sources."

Here you'll start with an overview, which provides a graph for number of visits as well as the keywords used to find your site and whether or not searchers found you through search or referral or they came to you directly. This should help you determine just how well your keyword strategy (discussed below) is working.

You can then drill down further into subsets of each of these categories. If, for instance, a high percentage of your traffic was direct, what was it direct to? This will tell you a little bit more about how well your pages fit your audience. The time duration visitors spend on your page will also tell you how well you're keeping that attention. Apply the same mentality to referrals and campaigns, and you'll get the gist.

Understand what kinds of campaigns get your audience's attention

One of the best things about Google Analytics as compared to other metrics sites is that determining success doesn't have to mean looking only for generated revenue. Because, after all, a new Facebook like might be a success if it garners you a new fan who buys a product from you years down the line, or even if they share a post that helps establish your reputation online. Google Analytics helps you get a much more rounded perspective across a number of reports. Measure everything from new newsletter subscriptions to contact form completions to link clicks to social media pages to events and engagements, like watching product videos or clicking through multiple pages. More detail on how to do all of these things over at the Search Engine Journal.


Know what questions your customers are asking

Of course, working with Google Analytics should also mean also working hand in hand with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You can use this tool to search terms related to your industry or product and determine just what customers are searching. Going for terms with high search rates and low competition is key, as these factors indicate a gap between what customers need and what they're getting. You can then analyze how well each of these keywords are doing in the Google Analytics Keyword Report, which is located under the Advertising and Adwords bar. For more on how to set up a Google AdWords campaign, take a look at Google's resource page.


Get a better sense of what's working on your page

When it comes to your webpage's content, you want to make sure that it's providing just what the users want, and that your calls to action are actually, you know, calling people to action. On the content overview page, you'll see a coherent breakdown of just what is being viewed and by how many people, as well as the average visitor time on each page. You can drill down further to see how they're getting to the most popular spaces in the first place and where they're exiting, which can provide apt insight into where your sales funnel is going wrong. Altogether, this should help you be more savvy about content creation.


How to set up an account

Setting up a Google Analytics account is easy, especially if you already work with Google products through Drive or Gmail. Simply go to Google Analytics, create an account, add the website you want to track, and voila, you'll have the basics at your fingertips. However, to do more sophisticated tracking, which is outside the bounds of this article, we highly recommend starting with this getting started checklist from Google.


Take-Away

While you may not be an SEO master overnight, even a basic understanding of Google Analytics will vastly improve your website development, online marketing and content creation efforts. So go ahead, master those basic skills. Your website will thank you.


Did you find this article helpful? Please let me know by leaving me your valued comments.

Related articles:
Understanding Multi Channel Funnels In Google Analytics


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
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You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
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Until my next post on Wednesday with top 5 smart email marketing tips, have a great week ahead!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.

Using A Blog To Promote Your eBay Store

If you have an eBay store, a blog is a fantastic way to generate more traffic and more interest in your products and auctions, which could potentially lead to more sales. So how can you best use a blog to promote your eBay store?


Focus on a Niche

The best way to utilise a blog for promoting your eBay store is to focus on a particular niche. For example, if you sell fishing equipment through your store then focus your bog exclusively on this topic. This will give your blog more focus, and you will be able to better target the types of customers that you are looking for by writing interesting posts about your product and the niche in general.

If you sell a variety of products that are not related, consider creating a blog for each niche rather than using one blog to promote all of your products. This will keep your blogs far more focused and appealing to your target customers.


Optimise Your Posts

One of the main aims of your blog is to attract potential customers who you can then direct to your eBay store. One of the best ways to attract visitors is through the search engines, so you should optimise your posts using suitable keywords.

Rather than just optimising your posts for product names, carry out keyword research for long-tail keywords and use these in your posts. In this way you can attract people to your blog who are looking for information in the search engines. Once they start reading your blog, you can direct them to your eBay store.


End Your Posts in a Call to Action

Don't forget the main purpose of your blog: to send visitors to your eBay store. With this in mind, it is a good idea to include a "call to action" at the end of each blog post and throughout your website directing people to your store.

For example, if you write a blog post about a specific product, you can end the post by linking to your auction or that product category in your eBay store so that it is easy for your readers to buy it.


Make Use of Social Media

Starting a blog and finding readers is hard work, and you may get more success by linking your blog up with your social media accounts. A lot of eBay auctions are quite immediate, and people are looking for a particular product at a particular moment. When you write a blog post about a product, tweet about it as well because this may attract attention from people who are looking for that particular product at that moment.

Once you have built up followers on Twitter and Facebook, you may find that they start to share your posts, which can send more traffic to your blog and generate more interest in your auctions.


Stay in Touch

Getting traffic to your blog is the hard part, so don't waste that traffic by failing to capture the email addresses of your visitors. If your visitors are interested enough to sign up to your email list, they are high-value targets and you can target them with special offers and time-sensitive information such as the imminent launch of a new auction for an interesting product.


Launch a Blog Today

Launching your own blog is an excellent way to market your eBay store, and the best thing of all is that it is very easy to get started. Check out WordPress.org if you are unsure where to start. Once you have bought some hosting you can get your own blog up and running in hours. You could even launch a blog on Blogger or WordPress.com for free, so this is also worth considering. Then just work hard and publish regularly, and you could start to generate more interest in your eBay auctions.


About The Author: Amy Sawyer is a freelance writer from
MyParcelDelivery.com - a UK based parcel delivery service specialising in affordable courier services for eBay sellers.

Did you find this article helpful? What other methods do you use to promote your eBay store? Please let Amy and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
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You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
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Until my next post, have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.