Website Development Archives - Page 8 of 9

29 April 2015

Don’t Ignore Those Smaller Conversion Steps

Conversion is an often-used sales and marketing term that can cover a lot of ground in today’s internet powered world of small and medium sized enterprises. Sales conversions are straight forward enough but marketing conversions are less direct and more subtle. Marketing conversions are the smaller conversion steps necessary to reach those bigger sales conversions.

The Classic Conversion Definition

The classic definition, the CRM definition, involves generating accounts, contacts and opportunities from those that you primarily seek and find. This is a black and white effort to generate contacts into prospects and ultimately clients. It is based on the outbound sales model of searching for those that are in the market or mood for buying what you sell. You are hunter and they are game.

The inbound model differs in that the hunting is reversed. People go online in search of something, hunting for information, – and that their effort will vary in detail and urgency. All online research begins with a mouse click. The leap from that first click to a buying customer may take require extra steps so the conversion process requires more detail to be defined. This is the need for the smaller marketing steps of a number of marketing messages.

Those Smaller Conversion Steps

If we define conversion as when the recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action, we see marketing conversions as a number of steps towards a sale. These steps follow a linear order in hopes that our online visitor follow suit. The reality is that visitors will get on and off the conversion line at various points. To have a true overview on which conversions are working (and which are not) we need to track these smaller steps.

Think of these early marketing messages more as requests for online engagement. That engagement can be subtle, especially early in the online relationship. Having someone click to your website from an email or a social media message for example. Click throughs are a positive start to online engagement with your business are products and should be considered sucessful marketing conversions.

The premise is that if enough of these small steps are taken there is a high likelihood the visitor will engage and proceed with you as a supplier (when they are ready).

Conversely, if these smaller steps are not working; visitors are not staying on your website, opening your newsletter emails, or clicking through from your blog posts the momentum never gets going and your marketing efforts stall. The marketing tactics that point to these conversion opportunities should be reassesed.

The More Leads the Better

If you are concerned only with the classical “big” CRM style conversions of contacts, opportunities, and accounts you may find less leads from your online efforts than from your face-to-face sales process. You may find yourself wondering about the effectiveness of your inbound methods. But smaller online conversion steps are numerous and an opportunity to track and tweak every component of your online offerings. The more of smaller marketing conversions the more opportunity to move visitors along your online pipeline to a point where the larger conversions to contacts and opportunities can occur.

In the online marketing world small wins lead to the larger wins of new customers and increased sales. Don’t ignore those smaller conversion steps.

26 March 2015

3 Ways to Spring Clean Your Blog

Content management systems such as WordPress are an asset for managing your blog. From one interface, you can do everything possible to make sure your blog is running smoothly.

Unfortunately, even a well working system has posts slip through the cracks, either from an unfocused strategy, still trying to establish what works best, or simply due to a lack of maintenance. Any well-populated blog will eventually collect issues, and if left unchecked your blog could become an impossible to navigate behemoth that leaves readers frustrated instead of seeing you as a thought leader.

With spring officially starting (even if it might not look that way outside), what better time to get your blog in tip-top shape? Here are some key areas to focus on, to get the most polish for your elbow grease.

#1- Purge Your Topics

Topics are like rabbits: they multiply. You start off small and concise, making sure all your core keywords are covered. But as you write, you realize people might not use the same terminology as your topics, so you start adding a few more topics to cover that part of your audience. And a few posts later, you’re focusing on a specific issue and you really should have a unique topic for each specialized issue you blog about, to make sure everybody can find that specific issue separately…

Next thing you know, you have an unfocused and repetitive mess.

Keeping your topics list small is important for ease of navigation and search; the fewer topics you have, the more likely readers are to find relevant posts in your archives. Create a focused list that ties directly into your content marketing strategy and put all blogs somewhere in that list. Try to stay between 25 and 50 topics to prevent readers from getting overwhelmed.

#2- Get CTAs Up-to-Date

Including Calls to Action in your blogs is a great way to encourage prospects along your pipeline, but they only work if the links do. Remember that your blogs are publicly accessible until you unpublish them; all CTAs have to be usable no matter how old the posts are.

Go through your blogs and make sure all CTAs are up-to-date and relevant both to the post and your marketing initiatives. This ensures any reader can keep interacting with your company no matter what post they come across, even if it’s deep in your archives.

#3- Link Internally

If you’ve written any best practices guides, such as whitepapers, on your website, use your blog to drive readers towards them. It helps your guides get better SEO rankings because they’re linked in multiple places, and shows your competency to those who click through. The same goes for any particularly stellar blogs: linking them in relevant areas of your website helps establish your thought leadership and boosts their SEO. The more places your pages are linked, the higher ranked you are in searches, making you easier to find in the first place.

Now, while this can be a tedious task (if you’ve employed a spring intern, assign this to them), it has a strong long term payoff: internal links drive readers to spend more time with your site — getting more information from you rather than your competitors. And more time spent with you means they’re more likely to buy from you. You’re using your content to drive traffic; make sure it supports your sales objectives by driving potential customers down your pipeline.

25 February 2015

Communicating with and Marketing to Millennials and Gen Z in 2015

It is important to be aware that every generation thinks differently. They have different shared experiences that often lead to different beliefs and different values. Accordingly, different generations communicate and want to be communicated to differently. Gen Y and Gen Z are no exception to this rule. Though, they are both different in many ways, they share many important similarities that should not be ignored by companies who want their attention.

So, if you’re marketing to one of these younger audiences you should keep a few things in mind.

First, You Must Understand What They Mean.

Communicating clearly, succinctly, and in the style that best works with your audience has never been more important than it is now. Whether communicating in blog form, on social media, or through writing on your website – the wording you use matters. Younger audiences interpret words and phrases online quite differently than you might.

Certain words have evolved or mean something completely opposite of what they used to mean! “That’s sick!” can mean that’s disgusting and terrible in one context, but it can also mean, “that’s amazing!” in another, to a younger audience.

Additionally, the word “literally” means something completely opposite to its original meaning. Gen Z will say they, “literally can’t stand spinach.” The word means that you are not exaggerating at all, but the younger generation commonly uses it to mean extreme exaggeration.

This phenomenon has been taking place for a long time. To illustrate, generations preceding the baby boomers took the word “awful” to mean “generally good, impressive things”. “Awful things” were in fact, “worthy of awe”. This is where expressions such as, “the awful majesty of God” come from. The difference is that today, with the speed of the internet, words, phrases and cultural memes are morphing new meaning at a far accelerated pace, and it requires a lot more work to keep up.

They Will Only be Interested in Your Content if it is Great.

You’re in a competition with the rest of the content online. Because of the endless options of content to consume, your advertising content has to be as good as or better than the content (paid and unpaid) they find and are exposed to around the rest of the internet. Otherwise, they’ll easily and instantly tune out, clicking the “X” button.

They Want Information Quickly.

They have no patience for longer, time-consuming content. To be clear, when I say “time-consuming content”, I’m not talking about an hour or two, I’m talking about often a video that lasts more than 20 seconds, or a couple of paragraphs of text. They prefer to socialize, inform themselves, and entertain themselves in short bursts, in part because they have so many other great pieces of content competing for their attention.

They Like Images and Short Videos.

Consuming, sharing, and even creating content is easier than ever before and the younger generations are doing it more than ever before. Vine, Snapchat, and now Instagram are places where short video and/or images can be shared.

Instagram has recently launched the ability to advertise short 15-second videos to respond to this audience’s need for short video content. Many of the brands who have tried it have experienced great success on Instagram.

In Summary

Even if these younger generations aren’t your target audiences, understanding them can lead to major insights about the future of all older target markets.

The actions of younger generation cause a spill-over effect to older generations. Inevitably, the younger generations begin to shape everyone else’s consumption of media by affecting technologies and trends that are (and will be) formed. Older generations will play catch-up much like as was the case with Facebook: popular with college student by 2007-2008 but only widely adopted by older generations in 2010 and later. (Most recently, my 87 year old grandmother created a Facebook account and is on it everyday: responding to comments and sharing posts, pictures, articles, and even memes!)

21 January 2015

Marketing and Sales Strategy: The Need For Focus

“You can’t be everything to everyone.”

This maxim has never been more relevant than today. Those that specialize and focus in on what they do best usually outperform the generalists. Focus breaks down a big, fuzzy target into smaller, sharper targets that are easier to aim and excel at. Focus is the stuff of a sound marketing and sales strategy.

The Lists

Focus is all about segmentation. Products and services are segmented by their description and whom they are intended for. Customers and prospects should be similarly segmented and placed into lists. Further segmentation by location, industry, or whatever will help support marketing and sales campaigns and blitzes. Campaigns and sales blitzes are the mini – projects for marketing and sales.

The Campaign

A cornerstone of marketing strategy is the use of campaigns. Campaigns are focused efforts (tactics) in promoting a defined product or service to a specific target market. Campaigns for medium size business enterprises are an effective way to promote new products, e-commerce, or branding. Campaigns, by nature of their simplicity and cohesiveness, are easier to track and measure for success than more complex initiatives.

The Sales Blitz

Campaign’s sales person sibling is the sales blitz. Blitzes are similar to campaigns but shift the efforts from marketing to outbound sales. The sales staff concentrates on a defined product or service to a specific type of customer or prospect for a defined period of time. Marketing campaigns and sales blitzes can run independently or in tandem. The distinction from general marketing and sales is the focus. Sales blitzes can be a morale booster. Sales people appreciate the focus and the momentum attained with a targeted effort. It creates excitement and a reason to reach out to potential buyers.

Trying to be everything to everyone in marketing and sales is a recipe for frustration. Don’t worry about diluting your overall brand by concentrating on just this or that over a defined period. Buyers expect that your brand will encompass a comprehensive group of products and services. In the interest of engaging with your customers effectively and efficiently, it makes good sense to segment your products and your customers/prospects and market and sell to them specifically. Your customers will appreciate it.

19 November 2014

National Associations: 3 Ways to Engage Your Members

As the staff of any national association knows, it is important to keep members informed, motivated and remind them of the importance/relevance of the association they belong to. Engaged members are members who care. Importantly, this engagement can also support your organization’s continued relevance and value to its members.

Though many members of associations automatically become members by default, meaning they don’t need to be persuaded to join or to remain members, associations should nevertheless strive to continuously prove their value to members. All members should feel like the association they are a part of is invested in them and that they matter. Further, it is important to provide members, new and old, with easy ways to relate to your association and find their place within it. Read on for three ways to engage members with their association.

1) Use Social Media to Create an Engaged Community

The power of simple, instant communication afforded by social media to bring people together is incredibly impressive. A key strength of social media is that it enables the creation of communities united by a commonality, in this case, a shared membership to an association. Your national association should see social media as an opportunity to create a community of engaged members.

Maintaining your social media accounts, with the help of a sound strategy, of course, will also aid your federation in appearing (and being) more relevant and approachable.

Once you’ve (a) made your social media accounts easy to find and (b) maintained activity on these accounts, you open the door for members to engage with you directly in an easy and convenient manner. Make sure to respond in a timely manner to show members that their national association values their input and cares about their needs.

2) Produce Visual Content to Engage

Large associations can seem complex to outsiders — even to their own members!

Infographics are able to both clarify and disseminate sometimes complex information while engaging the reader. They do this by delivering valuable information such as statistics and facts in an organized, efficient, and visually engaging way. Breaking down the association’s key functions or highlighting achievements (for example), into simple, well-branded visuals can effectively present how the organization works and benefits its membership. Done properly, infographics have the remarkable ability to make potentially confusing or bland information nearly painless and even enjoyable to consume!

The advantages of infographics for national associations are clear: from highlighting membership benefits to sharing important news or history.

Unlike a blog article (which has its own list of virtues), infographics are more immediately immersive. A well-designed visual arrangement of information will immediately create an appealing environment for the reader and requires less of a mental investment than multiple paragraphs of words on a page.

There is a reason infographics have been trending for a long time: they are easy to share on social media. People like them because they are seen as low-effort/high-pay-off pieces to both consume and share. For that reason they are also a great way to extend your message to places it hasn’t been before. Strong brand awareness for any national association is an on-going concern.

3) De-clutter Your Website for More Engagement

Try visiting (nearly) any national association’s homepage — choose one you have never visited before. How do you feel? A little overwhelmed?

If you don’t know exactly where to look and what you want, you’ll find that navigating many association websites can be overwhelming. There is often so much depth and breadth of information in such a compact space, that it can be difficult to figure out where to begin. Imagine how someone must feel who knows little about your organization. Pairing things down and organizing information in a clean and logical fashion makes good sense.(Not everything needs to be immediately accessible from your homepage.).

Conclusion

By using social media to nurture a stronger sense of community, infographics to communicate important information clearly and appealingly, and an easy to use and informative website, you will be more successful at engaging your members than ever before.

11 November 2014

Content in Action: Growing Your Business

Content generation can show the world that your company is an authority in your niche. While this is an important step in establishing your online brand, sooner or later you are going to want to see a return on investment. Growth from new business is what it’s all about.

Strategy will drive the process of putting your content in action to grow your business. Your business is unique, as are your customers, so some degree of customization is needed. That being said there are resources that can be used to put it all together.

Inbound Methodology

Inbound marketing is the buzz phrase everyone has heard of but may not fully understand. Simplified, it is a method to attract online visitors and help turn them into happy customers.

HubSpot breaks the method down into 4 basic phases; Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight.

Your compelling content fits into the Attract phase. Blog posts, ebooks, and videos provide useful information and answer questions that your prospects are asking. Tools such as SEO and social media help to amplify your message.

Developing a relationship by engaging with your prospects, along with more targeted content, make up the Convertphase. This phase will help your prospects to a consideration point where they become qualified leads.

The Close phase goes without saying and arguably it’s the most important part. The most fun part, for sure.

Delight ensures your customer buys again, and recommends your business to others.

Consistency is King

The key is to consider the above as a method. As a method, every phase, and the tactics to deliver every phase, should be followed religiously. For every online visitor. If you miss anything your valuable prospects, leads, and customers will likely disappear. There is no second chance with most online visitors. They came to you, after-all.

With the number of visitors that arrive at your website and with the need to run the rest of your business, you can appreciate what a challenge it is to follow a necessary structured method of running an online business. Fortunately there is an app for that!

Marketing Automation

The implementation of marketing automation software, such as SharpSpring, will ensure that all visitors to your website have the same consistent experience. Every phase of the inbound method is managed automatically. The software provides you tools for attracting visitors and turning them into customers.

For example, marketing automation helps to identify visitors to your website. It tells you what pages they visited and how long they spent there. The software manages the content they consume and collects contact details.

Following up, based on a visitor’s actions at your site, result in a likelihood of converting the contact to a lead. Timing is everything.

Personal emails are automatically dispatched at key times, allowing the crucial engagement necessary to form a relationship with prospects. Emails can contain access to more of your great content; providing your prospects with relevant information about your product or service at the right time in their buyer’s journey. Are they at a decision stage? How about a well-timed testimonial or purchasing incentive?

Marketing automation notifies you of key events such as when a lead reaches a certain status in their online activities. Your sales staff can then facilitate a sale with a truly qualified lead.

Conclusion

Inbound is the methodology you use to put your content into action to grow your business. Marketing automation tools are what we use to deliver the necessary tactics to gain new customers.

Together they provide an efficient and effective combination to achieve the most from your online marketing.

10 October 2014

Truths and Myths About Going Viral

Every company dreams of “going viral.”

The ability to create a single piece of content (e.g. a YouTube video) and to simply wait until millions of people begin watching it and talking about it, saving thousands in paid media while gaining unprecedented publicity and interest for your company, seems almost too good to be true. Well, read on to learn some of the truths and myths about “going viral.”

Truth: No one can promise you viral content.

The fact is, nobody can promise you viral content. If your marketing company is being honest, they won’t claim that they can make you “go viral.”

Why is that?

Myth: The common belief that “If you build it, they will come.”

It might be tempting to believe that with the right amount of effort, time, knowledge and creativity (and, maybe even money), you will produce the latest meme. Going viral requires serendipity. It’s less of a formula and more of an ever-changing, imperfect recipe. It’s a recipe with far too many variables to control.

There is a lot of amazing content out there that most people never hear or talk about. Even if you’ve made the perfect piece of content for your audience and made it completely accessible and visible, luck still has a very important role to play.

Truth: It’s crucial to make great content that is not about you.

Before you can even entertain the possibility of creating viral content, make sure whatever you create is about more than your company. People have more media choices now than even before, so don’t abuse and toss away the privilege of their attention once you’ve got it.

Your target audience simply wants to experience things that interest them, and not feel bombarded by a clumsy brand message. Find out what their interests are, and deliver them in a way that will engage them.

Truth: Viral content takes insight.

Lots of deep insight. When you learn about what your audience is interested in, don’t just stop there. Viral content takes both great insight and a great idea; so, continue digging until you find something you can truly use to anchor a great idea that will cause people to take notice.

Truth: Becoming a go-to resource for great content will increase your odds.

Develop great content frequently so that you become known for it. It should be content that your target audience is not only interested in but will seek out. Nurturing an online brand for qualitative and relevant material will generate a larger audience, increasing the potential for one of your pieces to go viral.

In conclusion, “going viral” is a gamble, there are many things you can do to increase your odds, but you cannot predict whether you will succeed or not.

However, irrespective of your desire to go viral, never stop striving to make and share great content.

29 September 2014

3 First Steps to Successful Content Marketing Execution

Content marketing is a technique for obtaining new business. Online is fertile ground for growing your business and online content marketing is a means for you to acquire new leads.

Are you at a plateau in your growth and looking to top up your sales pipeline? Content marketing can widen your market. It is an effective, but not aggressive, way to extend the reach of your business.

The content marketing concept for small to medium sized enterprises is based on your niche and the unique value you offer.

Disclaimer: Strategy First.

These steps are tactics and useless without a strategy in place. For more on this prerequisite see 5 Components to a Successful Strategic Marketing Plan.

1) Identify Your Ideal Customer(s).

In the online world, niche is king. Your online identity must be concise and clear. If you make it difficult for a visitor to figure out what you’re really great at you will lose their attention. Focus in on your “ideal” customer(s). Not real people or businesses, but a composite images of your primary customers. Be as specific as you can.

Content marketing is an effective way to extend and further grow an already successful business. Success may have lead to diversification. Best practice is to limit (or segment) your online efforts to specific goals based on your ideal customers.

Defining your ideal customers will allow you to re-focus on your strengths and uniqueness. Focus on your core business and the unique value that brought you success.

2) What Will Catch Their Attention?

It’s a noisy world online. Many niche businesses are able to thrive online, despite the noise. They are able to stand out and catch their ideal customer’s attention. They had to get found online first, which led to a website visit.

There must be something of interest online to catch and honestly hold your visitor’s attention. Not pounding the visitor with a sales pitch, but convincing the visitor to stay and explore your website.

You do this by generating something of value for them to consume. This is your chance to shine by offering something perceived by your ideal customers as valuable. Something they perceive as unique. Something they won’t find from your competitors. Solving a business problem is a great approach.

The more business value in your content, the stronger the leads are that will result. If your content is broader in value, such as educational, you may get more visits. The qualified leads will be fewer. This is why strategy (the why) is so important in the direction you take. What is your goal?

3) Determine the Formats.

The choice of formats depends on your ideal customers’ preferred formats. Put yourself in your ideal customer’s mind. Ask your existing customers. What is the most effective and engaging online way they would want to consume the value you offer?

Remember, new visitors are still strangers at this point. If videos are their thing, don’t offer (initially) an hour-long webinar. If articles are their thing, don’t (initially) offer a 30-page whitepaper. These longer forms of content come after some form of relationship has been established.

Blog posts are an easy and inexpensive way to begin. The effectiveness of blogs is quite broad, mostly in establishing thought leadership on a given subject. They are an excellent choice for building authority and establishing content generation consistency. If your immediate goal is to generate leads you will have to offer something extra with more business value.

As simple as these steps appear they are not so simple to do. As with anything unfamiliar or new, just getting started can be tough. Translating the theory to the reality of your niche can be a challenge. Outside parties can help facilitate the process. Ultimately, your business is unique and the backbone of content marketing must come from you and your team.

What makes your business unique?

28 July 2014

Social Media Marketing – How Much Time Per Day?

Portrait of middle eastern businessman typing on the laptop and looks concentration, shot in the office

One of the most common questions I get from SMB owners and managers is: How much time per day should my business be on social media? Note that I am talking about the business side and not the personal side, although there is (and should be) some crossover between each.

As a business with an online identity, you should have social media accounts representing your business brand. Social media is a great way to achieve awareness, introduce personality behind your logo, and engage with an audience. It can also serve as a focal point to indirectly draw people to your website. This brings us to the definition of social media marketing using social media as a platform to guide your audience to a specific action. As with any business tactic there must be strategy behind your efforts; in terms of what you are trying to accomplish and what steps should be taken to get you there.

Every business will be a bit different but ideally you should be using social media to talk to your ideal customers. Most customers access more than one social media channel, so your business should be represented on several at least for maximum reach. Regardless of your choice of channels, this is where you are challenged for time and resources:

Number of Posts Per Day

The number of posts per day varies somewhat based on the social media channel. Twitter, for instance, is a channel best suited to many posts throughout the day. Facebook and Google+, on the other hand, are better suited to a smaller number of posts per day, with top brands averaging one post per day. LinkedIn themselves suggest one post per weekday, but businesses can be effective with as little as several posts per week. The guideline for LinkedIn company pages is to post as many times as your content supports. This social media frequency guide from Buffer is an excellent resource.

Audience Engagement Time Per Day

This may be the most important time a business can spend on social media. When you post something of value you are looking for acknowledgement back from your audience; comments, questions, added value. You have started a conversation, basically. When someone picks up on the conversation you want to continue it. This is what develops relationships, which are the roots of all business. This engagement is absolutely vital in establishing relevance, trust, and authority in whatever your business is built upon.

Consuming and Curating Content

Most SMBs do not have a full time resource for content generation. Creating and hosting your own content is the ideal to strive for in online marketing efforts. The difference between social media marketing and content marketing is independence, although social media will always be an important part of supporting your own generated content. The way to start is to read a lot of other content on similar topics, digest the information and add value in the form of curation (commentary) and reposting. This is an easy way to follow the old 80/20 rule (80% curation, 20% original content), and not to appear too spammy on social media.

Connecting Profiles and Pages

Here is the crossover where you and your employees connect your personal social media profiles to your business social media pages. The benefit for the business is to identify the real people behind your brand and the benefit for the employees is the professional reputation they build by associating themselves with a business. They are going to dip in to their personal social media accounts throughout their workday, anyway. Why not encourage them to cross post from your business page and contribute to the engagement streams? Your employees can be vital particpants in any number of business conversations and represent you by their association to your business. Personal social media profiles will always get more engagement than business pages, so do not dismiss them as part of your overall company brand. Connect the dots!

Social media marketing should be a chunk of your marketing plan with a budget allocated and an expected ROI. It involves consistent attention to be effective, anything less will lead to failure. Crunch the numbers for the time and cost per day versus the ROI per measurable success (such the number of new subscribers/leads, and average revenue per subscriber) and budget accordingly. Here’s a tip; a pinch of automation and a sprinkle of marketing expertise can make a big difference.

19 July 2014

Online Communities: How Do You Decide with Who You Want to Be Friends?

Do you remember your first day of school, standing on your own in the playground? Or the first time you walked in to the high school cafeteria and had to decide where to sit? In life, there are many groups of people offering us different kinds of communities. Social media is the same.

In the social world, you have many groups of people that share interactions, interests and information. They will each use different platforms that offer its members different advantages.

When creating your online community, it is important to think about your customers: What do they want? Knowledge? Advice? A quick sale? A quick laugh? A connection?

Here are five online community types that you can keep in mind when building or improving your community:

1. Its all about business!

Promoting your business it probably one of most popular reasons for starting an online community. Nowadays, every marketing strategy includes a social platform. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, an online presence for your business is a crucial key to your success.

If this fits your intentions then use your SEO opportunities wisely. Know your keywords and maximize their usage in your content. Put forth your products and promotions and interact with your audience about product and services. Get their feedback and be available to answer their questions.

2. I want to be entertained!

Pinterest and YouTube are top online social communities for entertainment. If your goal is to help your audience relax and tune-out, use this fact to your advantage and create a community around people’s down time. Add video to your blog posts, or comment on a popular TV series, movie franchise or book to launch your community. If entertainment and/or leisure describe your online community type, post consistently and several times a day. Any excuse is a good excuse to be distracted!

3. I want to improve!

Who doesn’t want to improve! Online coaching, self-help videos and ebooks are all over the web. Everyone wants to be happy and feel good about themselves. If you can help your customers, community members or colleagues reach that goal, then why not? Whether you are sharing leadership advice, life coaching tips or entrepreneurship opportunities, make your page friendly, welcoming and warm…just like a good hug! Think about offering ebooks and online video sessions to interact with your online community. Post quotes of the day or advice that is accessible and useful.

4. Let’s make a connection!

You have customers online and in real life. The main reason for your customers to seek you online is to share their feedback, ask questions, give a review or show you appreciation. This type of community could be useful if you are a scholar, a researcher, or a company wanting to regroup a number of people from your industry into one forum. Use hashtags on Twitter to host chats and host a forum, if that fits best.

5. I have a problem and need a solution!

How many times have you went on Google to look for a solution to your problem? The Internet has become our easy-fix, our reliable solution finder, our mom with her crazy tips, or the replacement for that manual that we lost or threw out when we got our dishwasher. If you want to establish yourself as a reference in your field or a page to look-up when your client has a problem, then create an accessible online community that provides knowledge. Position yourself as an expert or create a question and answer forum for similar issues – washing and cleaning tips, travel and vacation ideas, health or nutrition related issues, real estate, dry cleaning or home brewing tips…the possibilities are endless!

No matter what, remember to have fun! Social media is all about interacting and getting to know your audience better. Remember to be one of your members and not just that mystery person behind the curtain answering their questions!