How competitions can help boost your social media marketing

by

If you have a business then you are hopefully already using social media as another form of marketing and to boost your brand. Social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook can be extremely powerful to many businesses but you need to know how to use them properly to get the most out of them.

Social media can be a great way to build up an online community of followers that can help grow a brand very quickly usually at little or no cost, but how do you start to get people to interact with your business on the social media platforms? One sure fire way to build up followers is to run competitions from your social media pages.  This has often proved highly successful for many businesses and has seen their popularity increase tenfold overnight. Usually these competitions will ask people to like, share and maybe even tag some of their friends into a post to be entered into a prize draw. Lots of people will follow your page and then often they continue following meaning you can then reach out to them next time you post.

When using social media sites, the most important thing to remember is that people want to read interesting and useful posts and comments. Don’t bombard them with spammy sales pitches as this will often have the opposite effect.

What first impression does your web design workplace give?

by

If you run a web design company or are a self employed web designer / programmer then you may have a place in which you invite clients to come and meet with you. This many be an office that you rent or it may even be part of your home that you have converted into office space. You need your workspace to reflect who you are and what is important to you. It may be that you like to be adventurous with your designs and use bold and bright colours in your workspace. It is always important to have a clean and tidy desk, especially when clients are coming to meet with you. This will give the impression you are organised. If you have to spend ages hunting around for a piece of paper, this does not give a great impression.

When looking at your office space, try and have a designated area that can be used for meetings that is free from clutter and has some visual items around for your guests to look at. Having screens showing your latest work or designs on the wall or logos you have created etc, can be a great way to show off some of your work.

Do you understand SEO?

by

If you are a business owner and are looking in to ways in which you can boost your business online through your website then you will probably have heard of SEO. Although you do not need to fully understand exactly how it all works and what you need to do, it is important to have an overview of it. This is especially true if you are adding products or content to your site.

SEO cam be very complex  and without understanding the basics of SEO and how it works, you can hinder the affect it can have on your website and you may waste a lot of time undoing work that has previously been done by your marketing company or department.

You need to realise what a website needs in order to perform well on the search engines and ensure that any content or images that you put up on the site adhere to the SEO procedure. All content that is added to the site should be written with SEO in mind. You can either hire an SEO content writer for this or you can write the content yourself once you are familiar with how it works and how to get the right elements in to your writing.  

Is your marketing strategy essential?

by

If you have decided to set up your own business you may be feeling excited about the idea but also a little bit anxious as you try to plan for your set up costs and try to come to a conclusion about the most effective way to promote your business. The cost of marketing a business can be expensive as you try to make your business known but it is crucial to the success of your company that you promote your business in as many ways as possible.

A good place to start is to carry out market research to find out the most effective way to attract your clients as this can vary according to the services and products that your business is offering.

For instance if you are running a business that is online based such as an online retail store then it is essential that you have an online presence of some sort either a website or a social media business page alternatively, if your business is one that caters mainly for customers in your locality such as a hairdresser it may not be necessary to outlay money on online marketing. So careful thought needs to be given to the marketing strategy that is suitable for your particular business.

Is designing and creating your own website a good idea?

by

Advertising is an important part of any business and effective marketing is essential for success.  Businesses need to have a web presence either in the form of a website or on social media platforms ideally on both. The cost of paying a professional web designer is out of some small company’s reach so deciding to design and build their own website is becoming a popular option.

Online there are a vast selection of tutorials which help the inexperienced designer, so it is certainly worthwhile spending time before you begin collecting ideas and learning the basics. Researching examples of websites that impress you to get an idea of how you want your site to look is a useful strategy and allows you to compare themes.

If you feel ready to begin your design but are unsure how to begin online templates can be used to get you started. They can be customised to your business with your company name and logo. The next step is to upload your content including photographs and text. SEO tools can be built in to enable your site to be visible when potential clients search online for your company.

Don’t forget to keep your website up to date as this is essential for good customer relations.