LinkedIn serves as a great tool for recruiting or job searching, but also serves as an effective platform for growing your business – after all, it is an online businessnetworking channel. If leveraged properly, LinkedIn allows for client engagement, brand building, raising visibility and distributing content. Let me share wtih you 5 ways to grow your business and increase your visibility through the use of LinkedIn:
1.) Have a complete LinkedIn Profile Page – It is a known fact that complete full profiles receive more page views than incomplete profiles. When prospective clients/customers come across your LinkedIn page, you get one chance (at that moment) to validate your business, credentials, reputation and expertise. Might as well make the most of it.
2.) Utilize LinkedIn endorsements from clients or prior co-workers – Clients and prospects are likely to scan endorsements when they land on your LinkedIn page. It would be a good idea to add your top 15-25 skills that you want to be endorsed for (make sure your most proficient skills appear at the very top). This can turn into a plethora of opportunities for you!
3.) 500+ connections – your network is what’s going to drive your business/career. Your connections can aid in your reputation but can also introduce you to prospects and influencers. Get connected and then maintain those connections! You never know who might be interested in your offerings.
4.) Content sharing – use the “share an update” box to distribute valuable content (tips, tricks and ideas). This could be anything from sharing an article, whitepaper, blog, etc. Engage with your network!
5.) LinkedIn Groups – Join 5-10 groups and utilize it as a group meeting spot! Engage in discussion. Comment regularly, provide content, start discussions. Stay active! Group engagement is important because you are likely interested in Groups that will drive your career and the people within those groups are likely good contacts to have.
Post, Share, Comment, Repeat!
Leverage LinkedIn to grow your business! (and if you don’t have the time, contact us and we can help you with that!)
Over the years, LinkedIn has evolved from a catalogue of contacts and database of resume-like profiles to a fully encompassing social network bursting with opportunities – branding, advertising, networking, lead generation, recruiting, content marketing and much more. We are going to draw our attention to LinkedIn Company Pages and the analytics tool. For those of you who do not have a LinkedIn Company Page – it is essentially real estate for your business to help other members learn about your offerings, brand, products, services and job opportunities. An engaging Company Page is predominantly used to educate and drive engagement, attract followers and increase the company’s online visibility.
Each company page is equipped with a built-in analytics tool for the administrators of the page to gain insight into popular and engaging content, visitor demographics and page views. This insight can aid in strategizing a content marketing strategy and can enhance brand development. For example, if you notice a trend in highly engaging content, you can tailor your content marketing strategy to focus more on those topics and themes.
The analytics tool provides insight into updates, followers and visitors. The analytics “updates” section provides insight into the reach, followers, likes, clicks and shares for each individual post that is shared on the page. Here you will be able to see which specific posts are engaging (i.e. which updates people are reading, clicking, liking, commenting, sharing). A breakdown of the Company Page “follower” demographic is provided using 5 types of data – seniority, industry, job function, company size and employment status. This will allow you to assess and strategize action plans to engage with clients and/or prospects. This section also includes a “how you compare” feature – which is your number of followers compared to other similar companies. The tool further tracks visitor engagement including page views (how many times your company page was viewed) and unique visitors (this is similar to page views, but removes duplicate visits to a single page, such as when a user refreshes your Company Page or navigates away from it, but returns later). Similar to the follower demographic breakdown, page views are also broken down using 4 types of data – seniority, industry, job function and company size.
The date range is customizable for each of the three sections (updates, followers and visitors) meaning that you can zone into specified time periods and gain insight into when your page is attracting more visitors and engagement and if it correlates with popular content or certain page updates. The analytics tool can aid in brand development, online visibility, reputation building and also lead generation. They are free of charge and can provide valuable information for assessing, creating and sharing content that your target market is interested in.
If you have any questions or require help with your LinkedIn Company Page, contact us and we are happy to help!
Every business and business owner wants their website to show up on the first page of a Google search. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of controlling the visibility of a website or web page in a search engine’s results—often referred to as organic search results (this means unpaid). To get into the nitty gritty – when you conduct a Google search, you are provided with a list of results based on what you have typed into the Google search bar. The results are based on Google algorithms which consider various elements in generating which websites appear at the top of the list. There are several factors that contribute to the results in a Google search. Optimizing your website for search engines is very important and advantageous for businesses.
In today’s digital world, business is being done online more and more. Consumers are conducting their research online and are likely making purchasing decisions based on the research they find on the web. Search engines assist millions of consumers seeking answers, reasoning and solutions on a daily basis. SEO practices can aid in business growth.
When you conduct a Google search, you are likely clicking-through on the first page, if not the first 5 results. It is no secret that every business owner wants their business offerings to appear as high up in the search engine rankings as they can. Besides the fact that researchers are likely to click through on one of the top results, there is a level of value and credibility in appearing high up on a search result. That is why it is important to optimize your website so that you rank higher in the results. SEO contributes to your business brand and online visibility.
If you can show prospective clients that you continuously appear in search results, you are likely gaining a level of trust, confidence and authority. Let’s compare the modern day search landscape to the more traditional one – the Yellow Pages. If you were looking for an electrician, you likely started on page 1 and worked down through the results. Like the Yellow Pages, Google search results adds credibility to your business. SEO can therefore contribute to your standing among your competitors. Likely, there are hundreds of websites offering the same thing; however the website that has implemented SEO practices is likely to have more traffic resulting in more sales.
Website traffic may be slow and steady and may not result in instant business, but to put things into perspective, would you rather open up a swimwear store in a busy mall or in an underpopulated suburban area? You may not acquire instant sales at your store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre just because you exist in a busy mall, but eventually you are more likely to sell your merchandise in a high traffic mall than an inhabited area. Just like the highly populated mall is full with people ready to shop, the web is saturated with people looking for solutions and so it is important to make every effort to sell your services to your customers when they land on your website.
So what can you do to increase your website’s SEO? • Use keywords in your titles, descriptions, content, headings, etc. These keywords should correlate to your business offerings and be utilized on your pages so that search engine crawlers will be able to get an understanding of what your site is all about. • Make sure your titles, sub-titles and headings include key words and phrases that allow people to know what you do and what you are offering. • Link building – external links back to your website can influence website results. • Keep the content flowing – rich content is usually 400-500 words and is relevant, authoritative and fresh. The more valuable content you produce, the better it is for your website’s SEO. • Social media platforms are becoming more and more important in search engine rankings. The popularity of the content you distribute as well as relevancy and authorship will drive traffic. Include social sharing icons on your website and get your content out there.
Your LinkedIN Company Page is important and useful for a variety of reasons. Your Company Page can be used as a community to share relevant information, increase your visibility, demonstrate your expertise, educate your followers, and validate your business. The question is not “should I have a Company Page?” but “how do I attract loyal followers to my Company Page?” These 5 tips will help you attract Company Page followers.
Tip # 1 Populate your LinkedIN Company Page with content prior to promoting the page. You want to ensure that once you start directing traffic to your page, it is a valuable “stay”. Populate your page with interesting and timely content, blogs, articles, images, etc. There could be nothing worse than putting time and effort into promoting a page that is empty once your network and prospects visit it.
Tip #2 Once your page is populated with valuable and relevant content, start promoting by linking! Navigate traffic to your LinkedIN page in all of your communications including newsletters, blogs, emails, facebook posts, etc. Add a LinkedIN icon to your email signature linking through to your Company Page. Invite colleagues, friends, family and social networks to follow your page and offer you feedback on the content. This, in itself, will get people reading and joining.
Tip #3 Embed “follow” buttons on your website as a means to convert the visitors to your website into Company Page followers. A simple click of the button and they are directed to your page.
Tip #4 Utilize the power of advertising campaigns. Follower ads can be a targeted marketing campiagn to LinkedIN members in a certain industry, company and geographic location as a means to help attract the right followers. For example, a Toronto Law firm gains business through referrals. A firm launching a Company Page may want to target other professionals in the legal industry within a specific geographic location and age demographic. A real estate agent who focuses efforts on condo sales within the downtown core may wish to target men and women, age 35-45 in the Toronto area in any of the following industries: banking, financial services, law, advertising, marketing, human resources, etc. These ads encourage prospective clients and potential followers to click on “follow” and join the page! When members go ahead and follow your company, that activity broadcasts through their network which in turn will motivate others to follow as well.
Tip # 5 Content, content, content! As you build your following, it is important to continue to enhance engagement by sharing content, offering valuable advice, educating your following and becoming the go-to professional in your industry.
More Traffic = More Leads = More Business
If you require assistance with launching your LinkedIN Company Page or enhancing your current page, do not hesitate to Contact Us.
If we could fill up a room with your ideal target audience, would you attend to pitch your business? You likely know by now that most, if not all, prospective consumers are part of the Facebook community. With 900 million daily users, your target audience is on Facebook. Everybody knows how effective Facebook is for networking. A Product or Company Page can provide meaningful interaction with your network. Gaining followers, posting engaging and relevant updates, promotions and responding to complaints/requests are effective ways to build relationships and inspire customer/consumer loyalty.
Once you have obtained followers through sending requests to your network and posting engaging content, growing your follower base can become challenging. Even further, friends and supporters following your Company Page is nice, but what if yor friends/family are not ideal prospects? How do you go about reaching your target audience? How can you get your content in front of the ideal customer/consumer?
Advertising on Facebook can accomplish expanding your reach and getting in front of those ideal prospects. Increasing exposure and product/service awareness is a competitive advantage, and especially in front of those that would be interested in your offering. Facebook advertising allows you to dig into demographics and determine who you would like to target with your content based on user activity – Facebook essentially tracks user information (about section), interests, activity and patterns. Therefore, when going through the target audience section during ad set-up, you can target people who are more likely to be interested in the content you wish to promote.
As an example, lawyers are the biggest source of referrals for fellow lawyers. Let’s say that you wish to run an advertisement promoting the blog post you just wrote regarding the practice areas that you service. You can target “lawyer” “lawyers” “legal” “law” “law firm”, etc. as job titles, interests, employer, etc. You can even tag “personal injury lawyer” or “real estate lawyer” if you are targeting specific practicing lawyers. You can also run your ad in certain geographic locations. This will ensure that your ad is being shown to the right people.
Below are our three top tips and “best practices” for Facebook Advertising:
1. The size of your audience – you do not want to exhaust a small number of people with your ad. The rule of thumb is that you want to set your target audience between 500K to 1 million people. This is a large enough demographic that you can run your ad for a longer period of time to reach a broad audience without oversaturating a small audience more frequently.
2. Test optimization – try adding different pictures, creative and headlines in the same ad set to test which photos/copy get more traction. People are, for the most part, visually enticed. Bright colours and interesting headlines can entice interest. Further, running multiple ads simultaneously with different objectives can provide insight. You can even try running the same ad separately in different geographic locations to test engagement as well.
3. Activate, Test, Fine Tune and Optimize – advertising is really about trial and error. There are no guarantees for engagement but you will be able to gather intel and engagement patterns that will make your ads more efficient and effective for your specific target audience.
If you find that you do not have time to implement Facebook advertising, feel free to contact us. We are happy to help optimize your business for you on social, while you do what matters most – your job!
At this very moment, there are over 316 million monthly active users on Twitter. There are also roughly 500 million tweets per day. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. Twitter is used to stay up to date on current trends, insights, and also build a name, brand and reputation. Those that are using it effectively, are likely getting in front of the right people, being heard and essentially driving their business. We are talking about getting your content shared, driving traffic to your blog or website and engaging with potential clients. All of this can happen once you start utilizing Twitter to brand yourself and your business. You may be thinking, “how do I use Twitter to build my brand?”
Below are some tips that can help you build your brand on Twitter:
• Make sure that the content you are sharing is easily understood (or simple!). Be straight to the point and helpful.
• Share engaging information! We cannot stress this enough. You want to make sure that your time spent on social media is productive. People will not care to read your content if it is not valuable. Keep sharing quality information, and soon you will become that resourceful guru in your industry.
• Always be responsive – reply to comments, complaints, suggestions, shout outs, mentions, etc. Acknowledge it all! People get nervous with negative comments. Negative comments essentially provides you with an opportunity to validate your knowledge! Worst thing you can possibly do is ignore a comment!
• Build your following! – Share content, be active, follow centres of influence, connect with people in your industry and you will see that people will start to follow you and appreciate what you are sharing.
• Be reciprocal – eventually once you start sharing good quality content, you will notice that other people will be sharing your content as well. You will want to reciprocate and share as well. If there is someone in your network that tweets something valuable or that you appreciate, share it, mention them. This creates relationships!
• Engage and stay engaging – this does not mean you need to share 25 posts daily, but to grow your brand, you have to be active enough that you are consistent, timely and relatable.
• Think your tweets through – make sure that you are not posting anything that can offend anyone, or that you will regret later. Remember that once you share a tweet, it becomes public and you can’t take it back.
• Be yourself! The most authentic brands are real and trustworthy. Be honest, follow your word, be consistent, listen, be personable, be yourself!
• Have fun with Twitter! – Don’t think of it as a job; think of Twitter as an ongoing social event! Connect with people, add value, be consistent and enjoy!
If you would like some further information on growing your brand through the use of Twitter, or do not have a Twitter account, but want one, do not hesitate to contact us!
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