Social Media for Business
Posted by admin in Social Media for Business, Social Media Networking on November 16, 2023
Based on our research and experience, the first thing you should do for your small business is create a brand, figure out your target audience, and get your website created and launched. These fundamental steps put you ahead of many of your small business competitors.
- You will need to keep actively feeding new, interesting, and helpful information to your website.
Tell people about your services – what you do and a little about the way you do it that makes your service stand out from your competitors. Do you wear face masks and booties to go into people’s homes? Are you and your technicians trained and certified by a well known resource in the industry? Do you have a special Quality Assurance team that follows up and checks every job? Your potential clients will not know all the bonuses that your service provides unless YOU tell them.
Tell about your products, or the products you use to perform your services, and be sure to let people know why you have found these products to do the best job. Does this product last for 50 washing cycles? Does your product provide a shiny surface without buffing? Write your descriptions as factual statements, adding data when possible for more credibility. Don’t write to sound like those annoying commercials that you don’t like to hear on the radio or television. You don’t like to hear those obvious sales pitches, and most of your website visitors don’t either.
The next step is to add social media for your business.
Social media for business is just that – people getting social on different media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Each social media platform has its own personality. Some messages are better shared on one platform than on others. But the most important thing is to START!
On Facebook, you should start a personal profile about yourself, and a business page. You can also create a personal profile and business page on LinkedIn. Twitter does not have business pages, so your Twitter profile should be a combination of your name and your business.
Please consider how what you are sharing with others (which may include current and potential clients) how what you are saying, and the photos you are sharing my be received.
“You never look good trying to make someone else look bad.” – Zig Ziglar
And please don’t start by setting up as many social media for business profiles and pages as you can. To be worthwhile, each social media account will need a regular visit and some interaction, so the more accounts you set up, the more you will have to keep up with.
It’s good to friend, contact and follow some other people and businesses that you do business with; they may share some good information that you would like to share too, and sharing like that is good for both of you.
Before you start posting status updates and Tweets, take a look at some of the messages shared by your peers, to get an idea of what is good to post. If you see a post by one of your friends that really impresses you, sharing or re-Tweeting it is OK. Just don’t always post information about your business, and don’t like or share EVERYTHING that’s posted by a friend or another business; too much is just too much. Share something funny, interesting, positive, or helpful most of the time. And you don’t have to post more than one or two messages. Every 4th or 5th time, you can share something interesting about your business.
This article shared by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers helps bring awareness to the value of social media in many areas: https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/social-media-is-not-an-option
From a helpful and recently re-posted article, Social Media Tips from Forbes magazine provides some more perspectives.
If you have questions about helping market your small business, please Contact me at Jax SEO Works.
Fall Harvest – How is that like Social Media Networking?
Posted by admin in Social Media Networking on October 10, 2023
Fall, the time of year when we think of harvesting the crops that have been growing all through the summer.
Think of your social media networking (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other sites) as opportunities to make and grow new social connections, making new friends and participating in new communities.
Some business people confuse social media networks as advertising platforms, and attempt to SELL, SELL, SELL, with every comment.
Then they wonder why others don’t come running to buy their product or service.
Oddly, the same people will turn the volume down on their TV when a commercial comes on, or change the TV channel, or leave the room for a snack or bathroom break.
Interesting to me that they don’t enjoy hearing pushy advertising, but they expect others to like their pushy advertising comments on social media.
Not that you can’t mention your business, your product, or service to your social media connections, but that you need to be more social than focused on advertising.
You need to get to know others. Tell them a little about yourself and what you like. Share a helpful, positive, informative, or even funny comment. Think of social network platforms like social functions where you are interacting with real people. If you only talked about your business every time you went to a social gathering, you would be pretty boring to others. You need to develop human connections before you occasionally mention something interesting about your business.
As talented Internet marketing professional Michelle Chance-Sangthong, the Online Marketing Goddess, once said:
“Are you building trust into your marketing? Do you deliver on your promises? Your social media activity should be a positive extension of your brand, of your values and of your corporate promises. It should not be a bunch of “clatter” that constantly talks about how wonderful you are.”
If you cultivate trust in your social networks, you will be able to harvest the results of your efforts socially and in your business as well.
If this make sense to you, and you would like to get more ideas how you could get more social with your clients in your business, please Contact Jax SEO Works. We like to help small businesses do better.
Quick Checklist for Small Business Website Advertising
Website advertising is the way to share information about your product or service with others.
If you had lots of advertising money to spend, you could use word-of-mouth, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and outdoor (bill boards) ads to let people know what your company has to offer, but for most small businesses, the Internet has proven to be the most popular and responsive media, the best investment for their advertising money.
People used to spend their advertising money on a Yellow Pages telephone book ad because everyone used their telephone books, and turned to the Yellow Pages to find products and services. Times have changed, and so have good business practices. More and more small businesses are finding out that they can put information about their product or service on their website, and they have visibility 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And (unlike printed advertising in Yellow Pages and advertising circulars) they can update or even change their ad on their website post or article whenever they want to.
Here’s our quick website advertising checklist to help you get more visibility for your business ads:
- Match your website ads to your target audience.
- Use one company message (slogan) in all of your ads. That way website visitors will associate your company and your message / slogan. This sort of “branding” helps people recognize your business, your product, your service.
- Keep your ads brief, interesting and believable, and add attention-getting, related images to your advertising articles.
- Create ads which will make your website visitors curious to get more information about your product or service.
- Add a CTA (CALL TO ACTION) providing easy paths for website visitors to contact your company representatives. Provide a telephone number and/or an e-mail addresses for your business.
- If you are investing in several forms of advertising, conduct simple evaluations. See how well your different forms of advertising are promoting your product or service.
- (For example – for several months, ask all of your new customers how they heard of your business, product, or service; see which form of advertising is bringing the most return for your advertising investment, then check again in a few months.)
Want to share any more ideas that have worked for you ? We’d like to hear from you. Please post a Comment.
Contact Jax SEO Works and start improving your website advertising today.
Jennifer Fond, NY and CT Esthetician
Posted by admin in Recent Projects on July 19, 2023
We help Jennifer Fond, professional esthetician, licensed in New York and Connecticut, with her website and digital marketing.
Jennifer provides a variety of skin care treatments in her Danbury, Connecticut studio, and in New York, including:
Facials
Sun Free / Sunless Tanning
Waxing
Permanent Makeup
Ultrasonic Cavitation for Fat Removal
Lash Lift Treatments
Find out more about Jennifer and these restorative skin care treatments; Contact Jennifer for questions or to make an appointment. Your skin will Thank You for it!
And if you need help getting your small business on the internet, Contact Jax SEO Works; we like to help small businesses.
How a Blog can increase traffic to your website
Posted by admin in Content Development, Digital Marketing, Website Development on June 26, 2023
If you already have a website for your business, you should start blogging to increase traffic to your website.
You may be a little hesitant to get started, you may not feel like you have a lot to share, not much that would be interesting to others. That just means that you are already thinking in the right way; you want to write articles that are interesting and informative and helpful.
Another article Marketing Your Small Business with Blogging gives you a good start in creating your own blog.
Blog articles actually help your business website in two ways:
- each article makes your website larger, and provides fresh, new content, which will give you a better search engine ranking,
- if you write interesting, helpful, and useful articles, more people will come to your website
- they will start subscribing to your articles with RSS feed and build more interest in your website,
- they will get to know you through their comments and dialog with your responses,
- your website visitors become more interested in what you are selling.
There are so many resources shared on the Internet, to spark your ideas for your own blog articles. Think of an interesting topic related to your business and start searching.
Get started sharing a bit of yourself, making new social connections, letting others know what an interesting and helpful person you are.
Have you started a blog for your own business? How is it going?
Do you have any other questions about blogging, or helpful business blog suggestions to share?
We’d like to hear your comments.
Got questions? We’ve got answers to help you market your small business with your website – Contact Jax SEO Works!
Time Management
Posted by admin in Getting Started on May 17, 2023
Everyone has the same 24 hour days in which to get as much of the things they feel are most important, as they can.
Some people seem to be able to get so much more done in a day than others. These people are able to do more because they practice time management.
Each morning, when you are starting your day, consider what you want to accomplish during the day. Set some realistic goals. Sometimes it helps to write them down in a list. Many people enjoy the satisfaction of crossing completed goals/tasks/projects/errands off their list as they progress through their day. Consider how much of your day that you can spend on each of these goals, and, as you progress through the day, try to spend no more time on a goal than you allotted.
Around mid-day, go over your list and see how you are progressing. If you see that you have more things to do on the list than you will be able to accomplish that day, you can re-prioritize your remaining goals for the day. You may decide to accomplish some of your goals on another day, but you will be able to focus on getting the most important things done during the remainder of the day.
At the end of your day, take a few minutes to go over your progress on your list of goals. You won’t always accomplish all that you plan to but that’s OK; you have to focus on what you got done, not what you didn’t do (remember the glass is “half full”). And as you practice estimating how much time to set aside each day for accomplishing your goals, you will get better at managing the time you have each day.
Do you have a small local business and would like to get started with a website for your business? Could you use some help improving your small business website or your digital marketing? Just let us know – Contact Jax SEO Works.
And if you have some techniques that help you with time management that were not covered in this article, please share your thoughts in a helpful comment. You never know who else your experience might be beneficial to.
Marketing Ideas for Your Business
Posted by admin in Content Development, Digital Marketing, Getting Started, Website Development on April 20, 2023
This may sound rather basic, but you can find lots of helpful marketing ideas on the Internet.
Search the Internet for online marketing and digital marketing, and also for the product or service that you offer on your website to find:
- infographics, memes, articles, and lists
- bulletin boards and forums
The more you research, the more helpful information you will find. Don’t just copy and paste or plagiarize! Often, you can find information that will spark ideas for a new advertising campaign, maybe a fresh outlook for the content about the product or service you offer, or a different application for your product or service, or find businesses to collaborate with for mutual benefit.
The main thing to remember is that you need to keep learning. You can’t expect the marketing ideas on the website that you built (or had built) five years ago to take care of you forever. Website maintenance – updating and adding new and interesting articles, checking for broken links, backing up your data files – that stuff is important. You need to keep up with what is changing in your part of the business world. Don’t get left behind.
Make it a habit to do a little marketing ideas research for your own benefit each day. Take notes of things you find interesting and each week. Then review your findings and decide which ones merit action and which ones are just good to know.
And the next time you socialize, either on the internet or “live and in person” you’ll also have some interesting information to share with your peers.
Is your small business website getting you the results you need? Do you get lots of website visitors, but very few people contacting you? Or do you get very few visitors to your website, and are baffled by your lack of visitors? Often Jax SEO Works can take a look at a website and make recommendations for several changes that could result in better responses from your website visitors. Contact Jax SEO Works – let’s get started!
Small Business Marketing to Attract New Customers
Posted by admin in Content Development, Getting Started, Social Media for Business, Social Media Networking, Website Development on February 10, 2023
What do you do to attract new customers to your business?
Most of us cannot attract customers with a colorful merry-go-round, and so we turn to marketing plans.
There are two general categories of small business marketing:
– Outbound or the old “PUSH” marketing – sending out advertisements on websites, in e-mails, on flyers, in magazines. Based on past experiences with outbound marketing, fewer people react to words like “New!”, “Sale!”, “Amazing!” and other overused terms, and it is more difficult to get the attention of your prospective customers in the clutter.
– Inbound marketing – attracting people to your brand and your products with engaging content – attention getting, interesting, useful, helpful information, supplemented with nice, related images and videos.
There are three main points to remember for successful Inbound Small Business Marketing:
1. Make a social connection, using one or more social media platforms for your business. Use social media that you are comfortable with. Remember to add regular updates, and occasionally mention your product or service, or a special event you are hosting, but not all the time.
An optimized business Facebook page is a great way to start. For some tips on optimizing your Facebook page for small business, take a look at this Search Engine Journal article.
2. Get more attention for your message with interesting, topic-related images and videos.
- Create a YouTube video channel for your short, optimized business videos.
- Then share those videos in your website blog articles can be a real boost for your site’s ranking.
- Ask clients to send in videos of themselves using your product.
If you post interesting or helpful information about your business on your company FB page and Profile, your followers will share the information.
3. After attracting these potential clients, don’t forget to provide a CTA (Call To Action). As excited as you may be to get hundreds of visitors reading your blog article, remember you also want to get them to engage with your business. Ask a question and invite them to share an opinion, Ask them to share their experience in a similar situation. Tell them if they have any questions about the information you’ve shared, you’d be glad to provide your insight and make sure your telephone number and link to your Contact page are prominent on your website.
How is your small business marketing going? Do you have questions about this article? Do you want to help market your business better online? Contact Jax SEO Works.
Promoting Your Small Business on Your Website
Posted by admin in Digital Marketing on January 4, 2023
This may sound like a “no brainer”, but if you have a small business, you need to let others know what products or services you have to offer, and you do that by advertising on your website.
Years ago, the best way to advertise was in the newspaper. Then the telephone book and yellow pages became a better way to advertise. Now the internet allows you to share your information with people in your local area (and all over the world, if that is your market).
Of course, a cute kid helps even a wrinkly old cardboard sign get attention.
Your own website gives you a way to let others know about your products or services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; your website is like a tireless representative for your small business.
Word-of-mouth is always good advertising, and more popular websites also offer interesting, helpful information, and ways for your website visitors to interact and get social, like links to social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
And if you would like help marketing and advertising your small business better on your website, or even if you don’t have a website and want to get one, Contact Jax SEO Works, Rock My Image, or Key Theory to help you achieve your goals.
Website Maintenance is Important
Posted by admin in Website Development on November 4, 2022
Whether it’s your car, your home, or your website, regular maintenance is important to keep things running smoothly.
How are you doing with your website maintenance?
Each day, people and search engines scan the Internet for information about products and services.
To help your website stand out among other sites offering similar products or services, your website needs to be original, interesting, helpful, and informative. And your periodic website maintenance is how you keep your website fresh for your website visitors and search engines.
OK, so what is website maintenance?
Website Maintenance can include:
- Adding a new article or page (visitors and search engines like to find new, helpful information)
- Changing out images / photos for a new look
- Checking for broken hyperlinks (nobody likes finding a broken link on your website)
- Updating information in the site (just read through the pages and articles in your website, and see if you have anything new to share or change; your visitors and search engines won’t know if you don’t tell them)
- Once you get started doing this periodically, you may think of more ways to help your website
Search engines and website visitors appreciate improvements like these to your website. Your periodic maintenance will help you to have higher search engine rankings and more returning website visitors. (These are organic results, so they will be a steady improvement over time, not a sharp jump.) Check your analytics and see the results.
Have some more suggestions for periodic website maintenance? Please share your comments.