Archive | July, 2020

It has been shown in the past few years that social media has a lead-to-close rate that is a full 100% higher than traditional outbound marketing strategies. Engaging with an audience is obviously critical for the success of your business, but many budding entrepreneurs and even some senior marketing analysts are unaware of the best tips and tricks. Let us look at a handful of the most effective and innovative strategies which can help elevate your presence and reputation to the next level.

Interrogative Engagement

In other words, the audience should be engaged with a question in order to produce a response. Let us look at these two examples:

“Recent studies have shown that Facebook is the best social media tool for businesses”.

“What do you think about the recent studies that have pointed out the business prowess of social media?”

The second text is much more likely to generate a response from any visitor or follower. The longer a discussion is kept alive, the higher the chances are of breeding a loyal and responsive fan base. In turn, they are likely to examine the products or services that you are offering.

Quizzes and Polls

Many social media sites give you the ability to create polls and quizzes that members can take. This is a great way to enable a post to go viral while simultaneously curating solid leads for future contact. Let us never forget that in the same respect, such questionnaires are excellent ways to keep your finger on the proverbial pulse of your targeted demographic. By understanding their opinions, you will be able to focus your services around their needs.

The Power of the Video

It has been shown that a massive 65% of individuals will visit the website of a marketer after watching their video found on a social media site. Videos are a great idea for a few reasons. First, many users are more likely to watch (or listen to) a video while out and about as opposed to reading small text on a smartphone. Secondly, videos put a “face to the name” in terms of product and personality. Another novel way to employ videos is to answer popular questions, introduce a new service or even to make a heartfelt apology to a less-than-satisfied client. Modern videos take proactivity to the next level.

The “Secret” Power of Twitter

While Twitter is a great social media portal, it boasts another lesser-known advantage. You may have not been aware that you can become your own “secret shopper” by adding a simple term in the upper search field. Employ the search.twitter.com URL and simply enter in the word “wish” immediately before your service or brand. This associates “wish” with relevant phrases such as “I wish company ABC would bring back their old product from last year.” This is a quick and easy way to scroll through any feedback that you may have received in order of the date that it was originally added.

Speaking of Tweets

There are some who have recently stated that repeat Tweets serve very little purpose. This is only partially true. Those fragments which have generated little feedback or interest should naturally be discarded. However, any Tweets that have received massive responses or engagement should OBVIOUSLY be repeated until their usefulness has run its course. Should you determine that higher clickthrough rates are associated with a particular Tweet, run with it.

Put ROI Aside

No one wants to feel like they are being sold something every time they visit a social media page. Posts such as “buy this” or “take advantage of our latest offer” are now becoming trite and redundant. Simply put, people are becoming much more finicky. It is wise to throw out the self-serving jargon and start real conversations. Find fun and interesting ways to plug your product without putting off your visitors.

Keeping Ahead of the Curve

One of the issues that many marketers encounter is that they simply do not have the time to keep track of numerous platforms. In turn, posts can become stale and not nearly enough attention is devoted to this powerful medium. Much like in any other analytical campaign, use software that enables you to centralize, collate and interpret how things are going. Packages such as Hootsuite are great at cutting down on the clutter and enabling you to determine exactly what it is that you should be doing.

Social media is an ever-evolving organism. So, what worked well yesterday could be outdated tomorrow. These are a few key tips which will help you to focus your efforts in the right place and understand what it is that your audience desires.

Are you stressed by online marketing? The majority of you are, even when earning what could be seen as ‘decent’ money for relatively little work by comparison. But you are still frustrated. Why is this? Why do you want more and why can’t you get it?

There are two very basic and overlooked reasons for this:

1. You are overwhelming yourself with too many tasks and not breaking it down into manageable chunks – therefore giving up altogether on the main goals.

2. You are comparing yourself to the guru ‘ideal’. That is, you are asking – “Why am I not making millions NOW? Like Frank or Bill or Super Marketing man?! They said it was easy and to just follow!’

Let me explain the traps of both these reasons.

Firstly – don’t take too much on. You’ll say to me now – ‘But then I’ll not do it fast enough’. Trust me, if you don’t take it in pieces you can manage, steps that are realistic, you’ll not do it fast enough anyway – because you’ll throw in the towel, get frustrated, say it’s all a big scam and GIVE UP before you know it. If this wasn’t true, there’d be billionaires made online all day, every day.

No one really wants to give up. It’s just they’re not chunking. Nothing can become too hard or too much to do if you just break it down.

For example:

Are you stressed by the idea of running your online business as it stands? Is it a drag? Are you afraid to scale up?

Well, the best way to deal with a stressful situation like this is to break it down into hours. Not days or weeks or your year plan.

Don’t focus on tomorrow or what happened last night, be here in this HOUR.

What do you have to do in just this next hour? Are there any problems in this moment right now?

Stay present. Don’t worry and don’t get caught up in all the things along the line you have to still do to make it work best.

Everything -once you segment- is doable. Easy. It’s the self-created mental overwhelm that harms you. And harms your potential success. Everyone has the exact same resources… You must break it down into chunks.

List the things you can do in this one day, this one evening or morning that will move you a step closer to your goals. That’s it. Even if it’s not much, it’s far more productive than a fruitless frustration that may last the week, achieving nothing.

The second reason, as suggested is – your need to compare your progress with that of the millionaire. The guru.

You must understand that you are making progress. Always. If you’re reading this now, you are making progress. But you will not notice how much you are doing and self-sabotage by accident because you’re too busy asking:

“Why am I not where he is? Why does she earn more money when I’m doing the same thing?”

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a vision to be like your guru or idol – this is helpful and gives you a future aim. But wouldn’t it be smarter to compare your progress with those around you, your peers… ones that started at the same time as you. Not guys that are full-scale experts on this bandwagon for decades or the ones who have gotten lucky in their timing, approach or product. This is not you. Stop comparing yourself with the stars. It will harm you because you will be blinded to your own progress because you will be constantly frustrated by your level of results compared to the guru’s results.

If you need some healthy competition to keep you going and keep you on target, your best bet is to compare yourself with friends and peers on YOUR LEVEL.

Yes, the guru should always be in your mind but it must be maintained as the vision, the ultimate aim – and not as the crutch that’s holding you back by frustrated comparison with your current progress. This will get you nowhere.

My advice? If you want to beat anyone at the IM game… Beat yourself from yesterday.

Be your own personal best, every day, and one day you will be the “guru” that others aspire toward.

The only way you can fail is to give up. If you don’t give up, you can never fail, and it is only a matter of time before your perseverance pays off. Trust me, it’s true.

For example:

Have you heard of Theodor Seuss Geisel? Or perhaps you’ve heard of Dr. Seuss?

Theodor studied at Dartmouth College and Oxford University because he planned to become a series writer. But the Great Depression saw him working as a cartoonist and advertising illustrator just to get by.

Deciding to launch his writing career with a children’s book, Theodor wrote, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Unfortunately the manuscript was rejected 27 times. 27! Imagine going to 27 different publishers and having every single one of them say, “NO!” No doubt you’d want to throw the manuscript out, which is exactly what Theodore planned to do.

As chance would have it, he ran into an old college friend who happened to be working for a children’s publisher. Yes, the book was published, and Dr. Seuss went on to write over 40 books that have sold over 200 million copies. He won Emmy and Peabody Awards and even a Pulitzer Prize.

So what would have happened if Theodore had thrown out his manuscript after his 27th rejection? He wouldn’t have had it to give to his friend. And likely he would have given up and stayed in cartooning and advertising.

Never give up.

One more story…

You’ve probably never heard of Paul Rokich. He was born in Utah, near a sulfur dioxide belching refinery that destroyed everything around it. The place looked awful, so Paul vowed he would bring back the trees that had been destroyed by the sulfur.

But the refinery refused to give him permission to replant the trees. So Paul went off to college to study Botany, where his professor told him nothing would ever grow in such a wasteland.

But Paul didn’t give up. Years later he began sneaking back onto the refinery grounds and planting seedlings week after week. Most of his seedlings died, but he kept planting. Drought killed many, some were destroyed by fire, others were dug up by workers, and most just wouldn’t grow in the poor soil. But then, some of them started to grow. And animals began returning to the area.

Eventually Paul got permission to be on the land. He got machines and a crew to help him, and today the area is 14,000 acres of trees, bushes, plants and wildlife.

Even when things seem impossible and beyond your control, and even when your efforts prove futile time and time again, just keep planting.

Because sooner or later, persistence always pays off.