Pregnancies Becoming More Social

When pregnant, whether for the first time or the fifth, there are a variety of emotions that run through you.

You may feel anxious, sad, worried, excited, scared, hopeful and curious all in a 24-hour period. Between morning sickness, dozens of doctor’s appointments and prepping for the baby, pregnancy can seem overwhelming.

Many women have turned to social media to help ease their concerns, get tips on curing morning sickness and give them peace of mind.

How to Use Social Media When Pregnant

There are multiple ways that women can use social media when pregnant.

Whether you’re looking to read about women who are due around the same time you are, looking to see how the baby is growing or curious as to what other pregnant women are craving, social media can help.

But what about giving birth?

Social media can help ease your mind when it comes to delivering your baby by offering birth stories from other women, tips on what to bring to the hospital and other important delivery day decisions.

The article “5 Important delivery day decisions” discusses decisions you should make before giving birth to your baby, including who will be in the hospital room with you and if you’ll hold or feed the baby, if you plan on giving him or her up for adoption.

Other ways social media can be used when pregnant include:

• Read blogs – When pregnant, women can oftentimes feel isolated, especially if they don’t know anyone in their social circle who is also expecting. Luckily, a lot of women nowadays blog about their journeys through pregnancy and motherhood. If you’re pregnant, a great way to meet other women is by reading blogs and even starting your own.


• Find pregnancy products – Blogs and other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are great ways to find pregnancy-related products. Bloggers will oftentimes review a product for other expecting women to read. Companies also advertise their baby products on social feeds, such as Twitter.


• See where your baby is at – All expecting mom’s want to know how big their baby is at 10 week, 15 weeks, 20 weeks and so on. They want to know if their baby is developing fingernails, growing hair and blinking. These weekly updates can be found on social media. By following baby websites, you’ll be up-to-date on everything going on during your pregnancy.


• Meet other expecting moms – Of course, the best way to use social media when pregnant is by meeting and connecting with other moms. Even if you don’t know anyone personally that’s expecting, there are definitely women in similar situations to you that are sharing their story online. Reach out to someone by sending an email or a Tweet so you can know you’re not alone.

Social media is a way for people to connect, learn about each other, share products and form relationships.

When pregnant, social media might play an even more important role in your life than ever before.

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What Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Crowdfunding Startups

The internet is a goldmine for entrepreneurs; especially when it comes to funding startups and raising capital. However, for every success story, there are hundreds of failures. The difference lies in the approach. You can’t simply post a fundraiser and expect it to succeed. You have to develop a strategy and market your way to the top.

The Rise of Crowdfunding

As any billion dollar industry does, crowdfunding started with very humble origins. In fact, you could probably trace the first roots back to 1885 and one of America’s most nationally recognized icons, the Statue of Liberty.

As the story goes, when New York received the Statue of Liberty from Europe – as a gift from France – it came in pieces. The only problem was that the state lacked the necessary funds to assemble and install the statue. While the problem was certainly embarrassing, Joseph Pulitzer stepped in and raised more than $100,000 from some 125,000-plus supporters. With those funds, America’s iconic statue was erected and the concept of crowdfunding was introduced to the public.

Now fast forward nearly a century and a half later and crowdfunding has become one of the most popular and exciting forms of raising capital in the startup world. While the concept is the same as Pulitzer’s, entrepreneurs are now using the capabilities of the internet to connect with investors all around the world. In fact, the three biggest crowdfunding platforms are collectively growing at an annual rate of around 75 percent over the past five years. And as a whole, the entire industry is valued at around $5 billion.

6 Tips You Need to be Successful

So, with such a large opportunity, how do you get in on the action? How do you tap into crowdfunding and amass capital for your startup? You must strategically approach the situation to maximize your potential. Here are six helpful tips:

• Use social media to your advantage. Social media is something that should be taken into consideration long before a campaign is launched. What platforms will help you best reach your goal? Probably Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but consider all your options. You can share your campaign on your personal profiles, but that will only get you so far. Make sure to create campaign-specific pages or groups that funders can follow, and post often to keep people in the loop. Furthermore, make your posts quick and concise, and find alternative ways to request funding. Instead of asking for money (which nobody likes), try saying “help me spread the word,” and include your link. If you create a campaign and nobody hears about it, how much money will it raise? Use social media to do what it does best, and spread the word.

• Pre-raise a portion of your goal. According to crowdfunding experts in the industry, the pre-raise is the single most important financial component of a campaign. That’s because it’s most difficult to attract your first few investors and gain traction. By bypassing this major hurdle and showing potential backers that you already have support, you’re more likely to attract additional funding faster. Ideally, you want to pre-raise between 5 and 35 percent. Not only does this prove you’re serious, but it almost always gives your campaign a boost in the rankings – depending on the crowdfunding platform you use and how the algorithm works.

• Create a killer campaign. Half the battle is creating a sleek, compelling campaign. In order to do this, you have to think about things from a funder’s point of view. What would make someone invest in your campaign? If you simply list a few bullet points, throw in a basic image, and ask for some capital, you’re not going to be very successful. You need to engage with users and appeal to their emotions. According to Nikolay Piryankov, an entrepreneur who successfully used crowdfunding to raise around $300,000 for his online jewelry business, you have to clearly convey your identity. He advises people to “Create a great video that really helps people to understand who you are, what you are doing and why you’re going to do it better than anyone else.”

• Actively market and advertise. While your onsite campaign can be wonderfully optimized, unique, and compelling, it’ll only succeed if you’re able to drive traffic to the page. That’s why it’s extremely important that you market and advertise your campaign continuously. According to GoGetFunding, a leading crowdfunding website, it’s the users who take action who see the best results.

• Study and learn from past successes. Piryankov believes that one of the other keys to successful crowdfunding is observing others and learning from their successes and failures. You can save a lot of time and frustration by knowing what not to do. It’s also possible to learn from success stories and adapt your campaign accordingly.

• Provide tangible rewards. Again, it’s important to think about your campaign from a different point of view. If you were an outside individual viewing your campaign, what would encourage you to make a financial contribution? Many times a tangible reward does the trick. Offer supporters a token of appreciation based on the amount they contribute. For example, you may send a bumper sticker to someone who gives $20, a product sample to someone who gives $100, and a personalized gift for someone who gives $500 or more. Not only do rewards encourage funding, but by incorporating tiers – such as in this example – you can persuade people to give more.

Successfully Fund Your Startup Today

Using these six tips, you can increase your chances of successfully funding your startup through the power of online crowdfunding. Good luck and happy crowdfunding!

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Facebook f8 Announcements Mean Opportunity for Brands | Social You Should Know

5 F8 Announcements You Should Know

Didn’t have time to make sense of the Facebook f8 announcements this week? Have no fear, our very own Erin Ledbetter has summarized the announcements that matter to you in her recent blog post, “5 f8 Announcements Brands Should Care About”. Long story short: Facebook videos are now embeddable, 360 degree video capabilities are coming in a Facebook newsfeed near you, Facebook Messenger is adding bells and whistles and opening up to third party developers to make it a more social and attractive application for brands, and Facebook is positioning Messenger as a customer CRM and brand communication tool.

Twitter Teams Up With Foursquare to Provide Location Tagging

Twitter announced that tweets will soon be able to be tagged with location, thanks to a partnership with Foursquare. This provides an obvious sharing experience to Twitter users that was missing for quite some time, while opening up new advertising, targeting, and real-time opportunities on Twitter for marketers to take advantage of. Does this move make Foursquare more irrelevant, or does this integration give Foursquare a unique advantage from other review-sites like Yelp? We think the latter, as combining the reach of Twitter with the functionality of Foursquare could open up unique opportunities.

Nielsen Research Confirms Value of Video

If the social network arms race to win video views isn’t enough to convince you to produce more video content, a Nielsen study conducted by Facebook reveals the value of a Facebook video ad can be linked to improving brand awareness, message association, and brand recall. What’s even more fascinating is that measurable value can be attributed to a video ad, even under a second of viewing. Read a snapshot of the findings and implications for brands here.

And lastly, in the slew of photo editing social applications available, Instagram is now getting in on the action. This week, the company announced a new application called “Layout from Instagram”, as a way to allow Instagram and Facebook users to showcase photos in custom collage layouts designed for social. The application also has a “Photo Booth” feature to give users a countdown and instantly add a series of photos to a layout.

The post Facebook f8 Announcements Mean Opportunity for Brands | Social You Should Know appeared first on Ignite Social Media.

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How Videos Can Be Best Tool To Market Your eCommerce Products

Over a last few years, we all know that product marketing through videos has become important for online as well as offline products. Promoting your product through videos not only increases the possibility of better conversion rates, profit, and sales, but also attracts the customers and build trust in them for your product which help to retain the customers. Just like how the other makes different marketing or merchandising strategies same applies with implementation of videos.

Creating a video that shows your product in action and highlight the feature allows you to sell your product to your audience and increases the selling rate and also reduces your return rate. A product data entry shows the quality of a product and provides all the details to the customers and also you can show the process of how the product is made, which can build trust factor in customers. If done right, videos do not just benefit business, but also benefits the target market. Perfect product videos can be simple, informative, short, and straight to the point as you want them to be. But you should remember that like articles, videos also need to be incorporated with the right keywords to make them easier to find in search queries and search engines.

Here are some tips that can help you with creating perfect, effective and efficient product videos that will result in conversion.

1) Focus on the goods: For product uploading services you don’t need any celebrities or models to show off, just have full focus on the product, how it can be easily described and how you can give more information to the customers without boring them. Try to say more about the product.

2) Promote product videos on category page: The best place to upload your eCommerce product video is right on the category pages and site search result pages so that you can promote those videos at the earliest possible moment. If you have gone through all the possible trouble, and expenses to make a product video then why would hide it. Target all the best possible place to show your videos.

3) Make graphics and photos professional: It becomes very important to recognize the power of the visual. Hostage eCommerce product platforms like Amazon and Etsy they never feature sloppy or amateur looking photography on their home page. The product should be clear and well pictured so that customers can have a crystal clear view of the product.

4) Use images and text: In any video of eCommerce product it come important to explain your product weather through action or writing, not everyone has the time to watch videos so providing extra content like adding bullet points will make easy, short and quick understanding of the customers.

5) Film the product where they belong to: Remember that you are not just showing the look of the product, but also showing the functionality of that product. Make sure that your videos should tell all the possible information and it uses and also the effect of product to the customers at short span of time.

Here are the types of videos which work best for eCommerce product entry.

• Testimonial videos


• Corporate videos


• Explainer videos


• Product videos


• Product demos


• Videos ads

While creating eCommerce product videos your goal should be to educate your customers in making the best buying decision, ever with the offer of free return. Educate your customers about your product and make them comfortable while buying. It increases the customer’s retention percentage and customer loyalty ratio too.

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Renovate Your Home by Being More Social

If you’re ready to give your home a facelift, then it’s important to use every research tool possible.

Whether you’re redoing your kitchen or taking your home down to the studs and starting from scratch, social media can help.

With social renovations in mind, here are a handful of handy ways social media can help with your remodeling endeavors:

Home Improvement Social Media Superstars

When home improvement comes to mind, you probably think elbow grease, swinging hammers, and sawdust.

Well, before the fun begins, it’s important to do plenty of research to ensure you’re making the right choices when it comes to designs, materials, and DIY techniques.

Fortunately, a number of major home improvement companies are on social media to help you throughout your home improvement endeavors.

Both Lowes and The Home Depot have Facebook business pages that include expert advice on everything from replacing a leaky faucet to remodeling a bathroom.

In addition, there are a number of home improvement websites like HGTV, DIY Network, Houzz, and This Old House that have huge social followings on sites like Twitter and Instagram.

These sites are inspiring millions of homeowners across the country to breathe new life into their homes.

Social Advice

As the following article looks at, social media is great for finding helpful advice on the home renovation process.

Where can I find renovation tips? Which DIY projects can I handle and which should I leave to the professionals? Which tools will I need for home inspections? You can answer many of these questions by posting them on your social accounts.

By following the business pages of home renovation stores as well as local contractors, you can stay up to date on home improvement. You can also post questions to these business pages or read the feedback from similar questions other homeowners post.

Search for DIY Projects

Whether you’re about to embark on a total home renovation or you just want to revamp your dining room, social media is the perfect place to search for project ideas. Social sites like Pinterest and Instagram have tons of design and project ideas in the form of photos.

If you find a project or design you particularly like, most photos include links to homeowner blogs with specific directions and materials lists.

By following other homeowners’ Instagram and Pinterest projects, you can gain a better understanding of what it takes to accomplish your home improvement goals.

Seeking Recommendations

Sometimes home improvement projects are too big to complete on your own.

Whether you need to find a local contractor or hire a designer, social media is a great place to ask friends and family for renovation recommendations.

You can ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers which electricians, drywall installers, plumbers, or any other contractors they used to complete their home improvement projects.

You can also use social media to vet the recommendations you receive by visiting the contractors’ business pages.

When it comes time to remodel your home, take a social approach to your home improvement endeavors.

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Social Media Keeping Residents in the Know with Weather Alerts

Weather is a hot topic of conversation, especially with the freezing winters much of the country recently experienced.

Between blizzards and bitterly cold temperatures, plus other natural weather disasters, it’s important to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in your own town and throughout the country.

Social media can help you stay connected and in-the-know for all the latest weather happenings.

Cities with the worst weather

From time to time, bad weather affects nearly every city. Even states that don’t experience extreme cold, such as California and Arizona, have their fair share of uncomfortable weather.

California, for example, has earthquakes and Arizona faces extreme heat during the summer months. While no cities will ever be “perfect,” there are some that have worse weather than others.

Oklahoma City gets hit the most by tornadoes, Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida are most likely to get hit by hurricanes and Worcester, Massachusetts typically accumulates the most snow.

If you live in a city with severe weather, you have to stay as up-to-date on weather information as possible. Social media is typically one of the fastest ways to stay current on what’s going on.

Using Social Media for Weather

Did you know that you can stay up-to-date with the latest weather news and information on social media?

That’s right, you can follow your favorite weather channels and news stations for live weather information as it’s happening. There’s no faster or easier way to stay informed than with social media.

The National Weather Service (weather.org) is using social media to educate the public to share critical information on weather, water and climate issues. You can connect with them on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Annoying ‘beeps’ on the television screen are hopefully becoming a thing of the past.

Weather.com uses alerts on social media to pre-warn people of any weather conditions in their area. They are even taking it one step further by showing weather alerts that may affect your family or friends on Facebook. You can then share the alert to their individual page.

As the following article looks at, whether you’re looking for the next blizzard warning or how to deal with flooded basements, social media has you covered.

Popular sites to use for weather updates include:

• Facebook – Facebook is currently the largest social media website, with one billion users worldwide. If something severe is happening related to the weather in your home town, logging on to Facebook is a great way to get filled in on the news. Not only can you see weather reports from news sites, but you can also see how your local friends and family members are dealing with the situation. Knowing that your family and friends are safe provides a level of comfort only social media can offer.

• Twitter – Perhaps the next best way to get local weather updates is with Twitter. News stations, weather channels and local individuals can Tweet weather updates live and as they are happening. Stay current with that local rain storm and follow the hurricane until it departs back into the ocean. Twitter is known for providing live updates, so don’t leave out this platform when trying to stay current with the weather.

Social media is one of the world’s largest tools for staying connected – whether that’s to friends and family members, the job market or even to the weather.

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Expand Your Reach with Visual Social Media Marketing

Using social media as a marketing technique enables you to build a following; that is a proven fact and a fact that no one disputes. However, using visuals within your social media marketing campaign increases your odds of success by a hundredfold, if not more! Why? In order to answer that you first need to understand how pictures impact an ad campaign. Then, once you’ve understood why images are so important, you can learn how to employ graphics to enhance visual social media marketing.

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Life is Traveling at the Speed of Light

In today’s world, everything progresses at the speed of light – literally as well as figuratively. All the information we need is at our fingertips with the click of a mouse button. Few people take the time to read anything unless something immediately strikes their fancy. Here is where visuals come into play in social media marketing. A captivating image will get more clicks than content that no-one has the time to read!

Every Picture Tells a Story

In the words of a song by the famed British rocker, Rod Stewart, every picture tells a story. Just one image can speak volumes if the right image is used. For example, think about all the words it would take to describe the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding gown. If you were a fashion designer trying to sell that ‘Kate Middleton look’ it would be so much easier to put one simple, but lovely picture of that gown on your social media pages. The object of social media is to build a following to promote your brand. Is anyone really going to understand the beauty of your wedding dresses with mere words? It’s highly doubtful!

“But I’m Not into Graphic Design”

This is perhaps the number one objection amongst online merchants and bloggers trying to set up their own websites. With no background in graphic design they are afraid to dabble with visuals. Unless they can find a freely available standard image, they refuse to add depth to their social media marketing. The good news is that there are a number of programs that are user-friendly and can walk you through the steps of creating amazing graphics from stills through to animated product demos. Web-based utilities like Visme have multi-tool functionality that is easy to use so that even a novice can create amazing visuals in just moments.

Failure Is Not an Option

Over the years so many people have tried (and failed!) to use standard computer software to dabble with graphics. The cost is through the roof and without a background in graphic design, it can be an exercise in futility. Having recognised the importance of visual social media marketing, it’s time to get on the bandwagon. Whether you are an entrepreneur setting up that very first website or a web development start-up, it’s time to expand reach with visual social media marketing. There’s no reason not to with user-friendly web-based utilities available.

Say it all with a single image and then, when they’ve clicked through, tell them your story in words. That’s what social media visuals can do. Entice them with an image, get them to your site, then talk them into staying.

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Tips for Using Social Media Marketing For A “Non-Sexy” Business

Social media interaction and promotion is a great way to get people excited about your company and your brand. This form of marketing can especially be helpful if you have a “boring brand”, although that may seem counter-intuitive. Social isn’t just for businesses or brands that have sexy products or trending services. Here are some tips for using social media marketing for companies who may feel discouraged by this tactic because their company isn’t “sexy” enough.

Give Your Followers Useful Information

If you don’t feel like your product or service will naturally draw a lot of interest or followers, considering trying a more educational approach as opposed to a promotional approach. According to Fast Company, there are six common ratios floating out there to help you find a balance of promotional and non-promotional content that works for you. Regardless of how aggressive you want to be in your social interactions or how much manpower you have to allocate to social, one of these strategies should fit your business’s idea of successful social contribution. And by sharing other people’s content in conjunction with your own, you will begin to appear as a thought leader in your industry, creating a sense of trust with your customers.

Humanize Your Brand

One of the reasons why people love social media so much is because it can give you fantastic information about very intimate parts of people and businesses, without having to divulge too much about yourself in return. That’s how so many YouTube stars got their millions of followers—by being open, honest, and showing their human side. And a business can do this too. Even if you don’t think your products or services are interesting, the people who work with them probably are or your company culture may be. Broaden your mind when deciphering what is social-worthy and what isn’t by focusing on the human aspects. Moz.com shares 4 ways companies can humanize their brands, especially if you are in a “boring” niche. If you’re struggling to find ways to accomplish this goal on your own, check out some of their tips.

Ask For Expert Advice

If you still aren’t seeing the results you want after trying the two tips above, consider getting some help on this front. You may need to find someone who has experience in social media to give you more detailed pointers about what could work specifically for your company, your brand, and your industry. Another option you may look in to is someone from your industry to help you find a way to break in further with your target market. If your business has to do with biology, find someone with a degree in biology and ask them what they would be interested in seeing on social media from a business in the field. Getting some first-hand insight into your audience could be just what you need to find a way to penetrate your market better.

Having a good social media following can be a great asset for your business—one that you shouldn’t shy away from, even if you don’t think you have anything worth sharing. You may be surprised just how many different types of people with different interests use various social media platforms, and they’re just waiting for you to cater your content and posts to them.

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Instagram Introduces Collage App

Social Media’s Role in Expanding Cultures

Social media has quickly become a digital melting pot by bringing cultures from all across the world together.

This is a major benefit for society as well as businesses trying to learn about their target markets.

With customer connectivity in mind, here are just a few ways social media is helping businesses like yours expand their worldwide cultural outreach:

Social Media: The Universal Language

When it comes to making a connection to your consumers, social media gives you a direct line of communication. Such is the case when trying to expand your business’s marketing campaigns to other cultures.

More than 500 million people across the world use social sites like Twitter and Facebook every day to share everything from their likes to their opinions on trending topics.

This gives your business marketing insight into hundreds of different cultures, thus making social media a universal language.

Speaking of universal languages, many social sites like Facebook and Twitter feature translation tools that can automatically translate your business’s posts into another language.

Likewise, you can also translate posts that are in other languages in order to quickly learn social and cultural cues.

Finding a Cultural Identity

Just like your business has a brand, different cultures have their own identities. Discovering these identities early on in the marketing process can help your business better promote its goods and services on a worldwide level.

By going the social media route with your marketing endeavors, your business can also expand its cultural outreach.

Although your brand might relate to numerous cultures, social media allows you to hone your branding to specific cultures.

By following other cultural brands, you can see how they relate to their audiences and create your own business identity within the culture.

Adapting to Etiquette

Etiquette is a huge part of expanding your business’s marketing campaigns to other cultures.

Why? Because something that’s appropriate in your culture might not be appropriate in other cultures.

The article “How Etiquette is the New Bling for Wealthy Elites in Emerging Markets“, describes the importance of etiquette awareness for consumers from one culture to the next. Well, cultural awareness is just as important for your business.

Social media can help your business stay ahead of the cultural etiquette curve.

By studying posts, business pages, and comments from other cultures, your business can gain a better understanding of cultural etiquette. This type of knowledge is a crucial step when expanding your business’s marketing to other cultures.

Cultural Outreach Tips

When using social media to expand your business’s marketing efforts; there are some important pointers to remember.

Missing the mark in terms of marketing to specific cultures is not only a waste of time; it can also end up offending the customs of certain audiences.

Before branching out with your multi-nationality marketing campaigns, make sure you use proper cultural language throughout your content. A common phrase or metaphor may come off as abstract in another culture. This may include your brand’s slogan.

Likewise, if you’re unsure of how a phrase will translate to another culture, either ask a native speaker or don’t include the phrase to begin with. Keeping your campaigns clear and simple is the best approach when expanding your content to other cultures.

If you’re ready to take your business from stateside to worldwide, then let social media help bridge the gap.

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Automation Becoming More Socially Accepted

Social media automation – or the process of automating your social media posts to go live at certain times of the day in advance – is becoming increasingly popular among small businesses.

Think about it – if you run a small business, you are in charge of just about everything.

You handle the accounting, the customers, the product or service you’re selling, the marketing, the website, the advertising and more.

By automating social media, a seemingly small task, you can save yourself multiple hours each week to devote to other areas of your business.

Bloggers Will Benefit

Automating social media can be particularly useful for those businesses that are regularly engaged with multiple social media platforms.

Successful blog owners, for example, are constantly pinning, posting and Tweeting old and new blog posts to their social media pages.

Since social media promotion is one of the best ways for bloggers and businesses to get their name out there, it’s not a marketing strategy that can be skipped.

Instead of having to spend time throughout the day posting to social media, you can now automate it quickly and efficiently to increase your brand exposure and save you time.

Getting Started with the Automation Process

So you want to automate your social media, but you’re not quite sure where to start.

The article “3 Great tools to automate your social media” discusses three tools you can use to automate your social media posts, engage with your customers and grow your business. They are Hootsuite, Post Planner and Social Oomph.

Hootsuite allows you to easily manage all of your social media pages from one single dashboard. With the click of a button, you can post to Twitter, Facebook and Google+ effortlessly.

Post Planner, on the other hand, automates posts on Facebook only. Since it’s geared towards just Facebook, it’s more detail-oriented than a program geared to multiple platforms.

And finally, Social Oomph is a social media automation system very similar to Hootsuite.

It has a few additional features, though, such as being able to tweak your posts and send them out again.

Tips for Automating Social Media

Once you decide to automate your social media, choose an automation system (such as one of the three mentioned above) and play around with it in order to figure it out. Most systems have an analytics tool so you can see which platforms are generating the most leads.

It’s recommended to do as much of your strategizing in advance in order to see the most success with social media automation.

For example, you don’t want to just automate a few things here and there, you want to have a long-term strategy in place that will work hand-in-hand with your automation.

Also, plan your posts in advance when on vacation or if you know you’re going to be busy with other tasks.

Keep the posts personal, though, instead of only focusing on the business aspect. People like to do business with others that they feel they can relate to and learn from.

When you own a business, you’re in business for both selling your product or service and selling yourself.

Get others to like you by adding in personal touches to your social media automation plan.

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4 Tips for Designing Great Social Landing Pages

If you’re a web designer, people probably expect you to extend yourself and try new things on a regular basis. Clients will ask you whether you can do “X, Y, and Z” and you don’t want to say no … even if you’re not sure what you’re doing.

If you’ve been around a while, perhaps you’ve been asked to develop splash or landing pages to help funnel visitors from social networking sites such as Facebook to your clients’ homepage. That may seem easy enough, but there some subtle nuances you’d be smart to pay attention to in order to create compelling pages that inspire high conversion.

The “why” of landing pages

The question you have to ask before setting out to design a landing page is “Why?” What’s the purpose of the page and how can you design with that goal in mind?

By definition, a landing page is intended to provide a focused marketing experience for visitors by eliminating distractions and homing in on relevant, highly specific content. In most cases, a landing page has an explicit conversion goal.

This typically entails the purchase of a product on an e-commerce site, signing up for the notification of a beta launch, registering for an email list, webinar, podcast, or newsletter, or taking a survey in exchange for some type of bonus, such as an e-book.

Although a social landing page has many of the same characteristics of a standard landing page, it tends to focus to a heavy extent on being easily shareable and will likely include on-page social elements — such as a comment box.

Four social landing page design tips

To get you started, here are four of the most effective design tips for social landing page design:

• Get logistics squared away. While the landing page itself is important, you need to perform due diligence and get other logistics squared away prior to the launch of a campaign. If you’re aiming to funnel traffic to a website, can it handle a sudden influx of visitors? According to Chris Whitling, Director of Marketing for HostGator, a leading web hosting service, “You should talk with clients and make sure both the front end and back end of their website are ready. The last thing you want to do is to have spent hours designing a page that serves no real purpose.”

• Avoid clutter. Landing pages should be aesthetically pleasing. Too many visuals can fatally distract readers from the main point or call to action. Use visuals for support, not as distractions.

• Incorporate social proof. When you’re driving traffic from social networking sites, it can be a powerful move to furnish social proof on the landing page. This increases the user’s sense of comfort and raises your client’s credibility.

• Short and sweet. Landing pages are all about getting to the point. The user should be able to divine exactly what he or she is being asked to do — and why! — in 10 seconds or less. This means you need to get right to the point, starting at the top and avoid using large chunks of text. If the person wants to learn more, he or she can proceed through the website.

Become an expert social landing page designer

One of the best ways to set yourself apart as a designer is to identify a niche and stick to it. People love working with a specialist and are often willing to pay more for experienced professionals.

Apply the foregoing tips and you could pursue a specialty in social landing page design.

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Are You Driven to the Benefits of Social Media?

Whether you’re looking to buy a car, sell your old car or simply get your oil changed, you can use social media to help find the best deals, the best services and the best car dealerships in your area.

When most people think of social media, they think of sharing photos of their kids with friends and distant relatives.

While social media is hugely used for personal uses, it’s also used for business purposes.

Social media can help you get a good deal on a car, it can help you find the best services for your car and it can even help you out when choosing a car.

Get Social on a Loan

You can even use social media to find car loans.

As the following article looks at, with more Americans taking out car loans than ever before, this is an area where people should be looking to save money and get the best deal possible.

Sites like GOBankingRates.com and BankRate.com allow you to search for rates in your area so you can get the best deal without having to visit bank after bank. You can look at rates at national banks, your own local banks and credit unions, and online.

Put the Pedal to the Metal

If you’re looking to buy or sell a car, you should turn to Facebook.

Facebook is used by more than 500 million people, but more so than that, it’s most likely used by friends and family in your area.

If you’re looking to buy a car, ask friends and family on Facebook if they know of a good dealership or car that they would recommend buying.

If you’re selling a car, post the ad to your Facebook page. You never know who’s in the market for a car and your old car might be exactly what a friend of yours has been looking for.

You can also use Facebook to look for dealerships and auto services on your own.

Find a few local companies and start following their Facebook page. If they have a special going on, they will most likely post the deal to their page, allowing you to save money on oil changes and other basic car maintenance.

Dealerships also promote when they have specials and promotions going on – as they want to drive in more customers on weekends where sales are taking place.

Connect with Other Social Networks

Other sites you’ll want to be connected to include Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

All three sites are used heavily by car dealerships and auto mechanics. Car dealerships want to get their cars scene by as many people as possible.

Instagram and Pinterest are photo-sharing platforms. What better way to get exposure than to post a photo of a brand new car onto social media?

Hopefully, the photo will be shared and get the dealership exposure to a variety of readers, which will ultimately bring in more customers.

These days, social media is used for everything.

Whether you’re looking to find a new recipe to make for dinner tonight, looking for the perfect gift to bring to your friend’s baby shower or in need of a new car, social media is here to help.

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How to Successfully Integrate Direct and Digital Marketing

The integration of direct and digital marketing is a recent challenge that has many people choosing sides instead of embracing the merge. The primary reason for this negligent behavior is not arrogance but rather misunderstanding. Here are 4 tips that we came up with to show how the integration of direct and digital marketing can help boost sales, conversion rates, and overall success.

1.) Drop Personalized URLS into Your Direct Mail

By adding a personalized URL or “PURL” into your direct mail piece, you’re creating a way to capture your leads and come up with a detailed report. A PURL is a unique and personalized landing page, specific to each account or campaign you’re handling. When you create a PURL, you are creating a user-friendly experience while allowing your company to collect valuable data. Printing PURLS on direct mail pieces is called “Variable Data Printing”. Most printers have the capability to print PURLS and all you need to do is send the printer a spreadsheet.

2.) Integrate “Push” and “Pull” Marketing

In order to do this, it’s important to identify what exactly “push” and “pull” marketing is. Push marketing delivers a message directly and finds your customers while pull marketing helps the customers find you. Pull marketing is often referred to as “organic” marketing or “inbound” marketing. The internet has revolutionized the way your customers are going to search for you, and pull marketing is crucial in this day and age to a successful marketing plan, but not without the more traditional practices of push marketing.

Push marketing will mostly yield a higher cost per acquisition, yet better targeting and ROI measurement. Push Marketing is fueled by budget and the cost tends to be static.

Pull marketing is built upon creativity and effort. It has a snowball effect, slowly generating momentum, and eventually leading to a smoother future. You can get the attention of your customers organically without interrupting them, and it tends to be cheaper.

Push Marketing involves the following: paid search ads, direct mail, email marketing, TV, Radio, and print ads, billboards & outdoor ads, contextual ads, sales calls, interstitials, trade shows, social media advertising, video ads.

While Pull Marketing involves the following: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), thought leadership, event sponsorship, public relations, community building, influencer outreach (blogger outreach), blogging, public speaking, word of mouth, content creation, video content

Now with this, we can get really creative. Let’s brainstorm the best ways to integrate “push” and “pull” marketing for a perfect working plan that jives with your business.

3.) Drop a QR Code on your Direct Mail Piece

What is a QR or “Quick Response” code? You’ve seen them everywhere, but if you don’t have a smartphone, you may not’ve have the chance to utilize the app. They’re showing up in magazines, on labels, and now on many direct mail pieces. These funny looking squares allow the consumer to scan the product using an interactive app on their smartphones, leading them to more information on the product or a specific landing page. They are computer generated images that lead people directly to your website.

If your company is doing both print and digital this is the perfect way to make your audience aware of that. So many times we’re left wondering how to promote our facebook, twitter, google +, etc pages.

Some of our clients prefer direct mail – some prefer digital. This pleases both parties. If they’d rather not read your printed piece, then your efforts don’t go unawarded. Adding QR codes to your print ads, direct mail pieces, and other printed media is a wonderful way to kill two birds with one stone.

The best part about QR codes? They’re FREE! You just need an online generator and a website.

4.) Mix and Match Your Techniques

So, we’ve detailed our “push” and “pull” marketing – now it’s time to mix and match. This is where the fun comes in. Take your push and pull marketing techniques and line them up next to each other. What mediums make sense to fuse together? While it wouldn’t make sense to promote your paid search ad at your latest public speaking or public relations event, you might want to mention to your audience that your company has been experimenting with QR codes on their direct mail, advertisements and newsletters and other print materials. You can pick up bloggers to reach out to at the trade shows your company is involved in and create content that coincides with your print, billboard, tv, radio and other traditional forms of advertisement. Event leadership and community building can most certainly be mentioned in your social media marketing and if there’s any public speaking going on at these events, the same is true vice versa.

The digital age calls for the integration of direct and digital marketing. When done correctly it can greatly enhance your company’s productivity and drive traffic to your website as well as satisfy those who are more comfortable with traditional forms of media. It can assist you in tracking leads and conversions – a struggle that has existed with direct mail since its inception. Using the tips outlined in this post you’ll be well on your way to creating a harmonious and successful marketing plan.

About Us

Since 1966, Ballantine has been creating and implementing innovative and cost-effective print and digital direct marketing campaigns that leave lasting impressions, generate greater responses and help their clients better connect with their customers. To learn more, please visit http://ift.tt/1Ad5eXL.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating Visually Appealing Content

Have you noticed that I publish a lot of visually appealing content on Quick Sprout? From videos to infographics, I’m constantly leveraging visual media.

Can you guess why?

It’s because these visual content pieces are generating more backlinks than any other form of content I publish, which—in the long run—helps increase my search engine rankings and overall readership numbers.

So, how do you create these visual masterpieces? Well, this infographic should help you.

Click on the image below to see a larger view:

Click here to view an enlarged version of this infographic.

Conclusion

Out of the 9 media types listed in the infographic, the ones that tend to do the best seem to be comics and infographics. And if you don’t have a ton of money to spend on creating them, no worries—you can always use the tools I described above.

Have you created visually appealing content before? If so, what were the results you experienced?

Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below):

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5 Small Changes That Can Lead To A Big Increase In Conversion Rate Optimization

We received this article from Chris Lucas, Vice President of Marketing at Formstack. Formstack is a provider of online traffic conversion solutions. Through their 2015 Form Conversion Report, they have provided Socialnomics with 5 tips on how to increase conversions on different platforms.

As marketers, we’re on a constant mission to motivate action. Whether it’s convincing consumers to buy a product, sign up for a subscription, donate to a cause or commit to volunteer their time, marketing is the driving force.

There’s a lot of measurement behind solid marketing plans – both on the front end to establish a benchmark, and the back-end to evaluate results. One of the most measurable ways marketers can move the needle – and show the results of their efforts – is through conversion rate optimization.

In marketing, small changes can make a big difference, and this is especially true when it comes to CRO. A few minor modifications to design, messaging or timing can lead to major gains in conversions.

Here are five small campaign tweaks that can payoff in big results:

Change #1: Make it social.

One of the best ways to boost conversions is to extend the reach of your form. Contest forms, for example, pair perfectly with a social strategy. When possible, embed contest forms in your Facebook page and other key social media channels. Conversion rates more than double (from 9% to 20%) when users integrate their forms with their Facebook pages.

You can also leverage social media to save entrants time. Offer to pull information from their social media profiles. Our data shows conversion rates can increase up to 189% when form users take advantage of our Social Autofill feature.

Change #2: Make your call to action button bigger and bolder.

What’s the final step you want visitors to take when they visit your landing page? Usually, it’s to click the call to action button. With that in mind, pay a little extra attention to this element. Change the color to an attention-grabbing hue or add some subtle animation when the user hovers over the button.

Also, consider tweaking your button copy to better communicate your value proposition. Create motivating text that drives people to take action – and be specific. Adding just one word after the word “submit” can boost conversion rates by as much as 320%. But even a simple “next” or “continue” can help guide users through to completion of multi-page forms.

Don’t forget, though: It’s still important to keep it short. The top 10 converting buttons in our Form Conversion Report all contained two words or less.

Change #3: Swap out your contact form for a proven performer.

Most of us are suckers for a chance to win or a free gift. So are most of our target subscribers. Switch things up and remove your standard contact form with one that promises some kind of added value.

The numbers speak for themselves: according to the 2015 Form Conversion Report, a simple contact form only has a 1% conversion rate. But if your form is attached to a contest or survey, you can expect conversion rates of around 35% and 14%, respectively. And don’t forget about event registrations! These forms convert at approximately 11%, and participants are likely to be highly qualified leads.

Change #4: Brand your form.

Your forms are part of your suite of marketing materials – they should have a look and feel consistent with your brand guidelines. Include your logo, feature familiar key messaging and create your form in your brand’s color palette. A generic form isn’t only uninteresting – it can appear less trustworthy. Don’t risk form abandonment by taking an aesthetic shortcut. Make sure your customers know they’re submitting their information to you and only you.

Change #5: Adjust your schedule.

Sometimes your form doesn’t require optimization – your approach does.

Like most things in life, timing is everything when it comes to conversion rate optimization. Certain forms attract more submissions at different times, and on different days of the week. Planning promotion activities around those peak times can make a big impact on conversions.

The 2015 Form Conversion Report revealed contest submissions peak around 8 p.m. on Thursdays. If you want to promote an order or payment form, Tuesdays at 11 a.m. is the ideal window. On Wednesdays, plan to push event registrations at 11 a.m., and promote donation forms at 2 p.m.. Save your end-of-day promotion push for lead generation forms: Those get the most submissions at 4 p.m. on Thursdays.

To get the most bang from your buck, coordinate social media and email campaigns with the best time of day for form submissions. When marketing materials are delivered at the time of day recipients are most likely to click submit, you achieve better reach without expending any additional effort.

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Be More Social and Avoid Being Remote

Whether you sell products or services or are looking to buy them, social media can be a treasure trove of opportunities for you.

While there are obviously other ways to promote and/or shop for goods, social media is beneficial to both the buyer and the seller for the simple factor that it is so accessible. Throw in the fact that using it is essentially free, and it can be a win-win for companies and consumers.

With that said, are both companies and consumers taking advantage of social networking? If not, how can they better position themselves to do just that?

Be Active and Alert

When it comes down to the business owner, he or she can benefit greatly from even just minimal action on social media. Now, imagine if they’re active on social networking sites regularly?

In order to benefit as a company from social, make sure you:

• Engage regularly – To increase the chances of being truly effective on social media, make sure to engage consumers regularly. Doing this benefits you for several reasons, including regular interaction, being seen as authoritative in your respective industry, and someone who takes an interest in consumer matters;


• Don’t push sales – Whether you are promoting auto insurance, FiOS TV, legal services, cars and trucks for sale or hundreds of any other products and services, don’t come across as a salesperson from the start. Consumers are literally inundated daily with flyers, emails, regular mailings, and even ads on various social sites trying to entice them to buy. If you push the sale right from the get-go, you stand a good chance of pushing the individual away.

In order to benefit as a consumer from social, make sure you:

• Search the social world – A larger number of companies are finding that being busy on social networking sites truly does matter. As a result, you stand to benefit when you know where to find them. While Facebook and Twitter are the respective kings of the social world, don’t forget to look for company representation on sites such as Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more. The more social you are, the greater chance of finding the right deal;


• Network with others – Since you can’t be on all the popular social sites at once (unless you have a bunch of free time on your hands), it is a good idea to network with other consumers. As an example, in the event you are a regular on Twitter, follow other users with similar interests and buying habits as yourself. Maybe you will miss out initially on a certain company’s announcement about a sale or upcoming new release, but others you follow will have the scoop. The more networking you do the better chance of scoring savings.

While some companies and consumers don’t have time for social media, many others use it as one of their main resources for selling and buying goods and services.

When you’re more social, everyone stands to benefit.

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The St. Patrick’s Day Round Up O’ Social Media Posts

Is Employee Social Engagement a Good or Bad Thing?

With electronic communication and social media, texting has made its way into the work place. Is this a good thing?

Many professionals feel both sides of this; texting work information to consumers and clients has strong pros, but also some cons to go along with it.

As a business owner, it’s a good idea to set some parameters and guidelines for your employees regarding texting so as not to have anyone regret anything or be caught in a difficult situation, but overall work texting is an important mode of communication and should be accessible.

Here’s a look at some pros and cons of work texting….

Pros:

• It’s an easy way to communicate. You can text individually or within a group and this way, information gets out quickly and to the right people. No sifting through emails or waiting for programs to load. Responses are easy and to the point.

• It’s accessible. With a phone call, you need to be in a space to talk and have the time for a conversation. With email, you often have to pull up your email account and it’s a bit more difficult to access past emails and read the whole conversation. Texting is easy – conversations are right in front of you, it just takes a minute and you can be doing something else during a text conversation.

• It’s non-invasive. As long as you’re not driving or attending to something else where you could be in a dangerous situation, or in a meeting with someone else, texting is pretty easy to do. You can text while working on something else or even while traveling. As the following article looks at, some may think, texting while flying? but it’s an easy way to stay connected even during travel time. In places where a phone conversation isn’t feasible, you can text.

• You and your employees can text out links of information – press releases, media, product launches, social media links, all of these are easy to disseminate through text. It’s a good marketing tool.

Cons:

• Texting isn’t always seen as professional. Some people still don’t like texting as a means of professional communication. They’d rather have an email or phone call. The best way to work around this is to make sure you and your employees know your clients, customers and colleagues.

• Texting is not secure. Texts are easy to pass around and can leak valuable, secure information. To work around this one, simply don’t text information that you’d like to remain private.

• It can be distracting. Because texting is so convenient, it can be distracting and take away from current tasks. You don’t want someone else texting while you’re talking to them or in the middle of an important meeting (unless it’s related and part of the meeting), so you and your employees shouldn’t do it, either.

Texting is the second most popular of work communication, email being the first.

It’s hard to stay away from texting regarding work, and it is an efficient and easy way for your employees to communicate.

The key is to be careful, but, then again, any communication should come with that warning.

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CEO’s Know They Need a Social Game

Top CEO’s know that social media is no longer an option if they wish to stay in business, it’s a must.

With billions of people using social media, it has quickly risen to the top as one of the best ways for companies to advertise, market their brand and gain exposure. With so many platforms to choose from and so many different ways to go about advertising with social media, it can be tough to know what to do.

Surprisingly, 68 percent of CEO’s are not on any social network, according to CEO.com. Despite these alarming statistics, CEO’s should be on social media in order to be viewed as more innovative and accessible.

Get Your Brand Some Promotion

Here, we’re providing tips on how CEO’s can use social media to promote their company’s brands:

• Make it personal – People like to follow businesses and individuals they feel they can relate to. As a CEO, you don’t have to make your social profiles all about business. You can incorporate some of your family life into your photo feeds, share status updates on what your plans are for the weekend or mention a new restaurant you experienced recently. Social media is all about connecting with other people, who will hopefully wind up as customers of yours down the line.


• Emphasize the fun – A great way to gain exposure and followers on social media is by hosting giveaways and contests on your pages. If you own a retail store, for example, you can ask followers to share their favorite product of yours to be entered into your giveaway. Take it one step further by giving extra entries to those that share your contest with their social media followers, and so on and so forth. Giveaways can be a quick and easy way to introduce your company to thousands of new faces.


• Use videos – Oftentimes, CEO’s and other business owners will be active on social media but will forget about one of the biggest platforms – YouTube. YouTube currently has more than 1 billion users and 4 billion video views per day. YouTube is easily one of the biggest markets to advertise on as the proof is in the numbers – people clearly like watching videos. As the following article looks at, CEO and philanthropist Cecilia Ibru, for example, shares a video on the gender norms and being a woman leader in Nigeria. Watching a video connects you to the speaker and allows you to feel what they are feeling, which is something a Tweet or a status update just can’t portray.


• Get employees involved – As the CEO, you’re the ring leader of the group. You should be on social media to both promote your business and encourage your employees to actively engage on the platforms, too. Having employees on social media is also a great way to grow your company and find qualified candidates to work for your company. Professional network LinkedIn is ranked as the number one professional social networking tool. You and your employees can use it to scout new talent, hire new team members and grow your staff.

Top CEOs understand the importance of social media and know the benefits of using the platforms.

The sooner you can start interacting with customers online, the quicker your business is going to grow.

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Snapchat Receives Investment From Alibaba at $15 Million Valuation

Bloomberg — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. plans to invest in Snapchat Inc., the mobile application for sending disappearing photos, at a valuation of $15 billion, people familiar with the situation said.

China’s biggest e-commerce company intends to invest $200 million, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Snapchat is part of a breed of startups with multibillion-dollar valuations, with investors lining up to offer financing. With the latest deal, Snapchat would be ranked behind only mobile car-booking application Uber Technologies Inc. and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp., according to data compiled by researcher CB Insights. Xiaomi is pegged at $45 billion, while Uber’s latest round valued it at $40 billion.

“We continue to hire across the business,” Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said at the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California. He declined to comment on fundraising efforts, adding, “We are famous for not talking about the future.”

Snapchat, based in Los Angeles, was in discussions last month to raise $500 million in a round of financing that could value the company at $16 billion to $19 billion, a person familiar with the situation said at the time. Alibaba’s planned investment would be outside of that round, one of the people said Wednesday. Alibaba declined to comment on the funding.

Alibaba Expansion

Alibaba was also involved in discussions last year to invest in Snapchat ahead of the marketplace’s initial public offering in September, although a deal didn’t happen. Alibaba is expanding beyond its core business of e-commerce, adding other investments such as finance and entertainment content as part of a plan to serve 2 billion customers globally.

“Alibaba has major plans to access overseas markets,” said You Na, an analyst at ICBC International Research Ltd. in Hong Kong. “They also have intentions to move into social networks.”

Snapchat lets people take and draw on photos, then send them to select friends or add them to a public “story.” The photos and videos disappear seconds after the recipient views them. The company says its users — the app is popular among teens — send more than 700 million disappearing “snaps” and view more than 500 million stories daily.

High Valuations

Spiegel started Snapchat in a Stanford University fraternity house in 2011 and turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook Inc. in 2013. He raised funds from 23 investors at a $10 billion valuation last year. That increase has corresponded with a surge in venture spending to the highest level in more than a decade.

Venture capitalists pumped $48.3 billion into U.S. companies last year, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Alibaba, founded in 1999 by a group led by former English teacher Jack Ma, held the world’s largest initial public offering when it listed in New York last year. The stock surged 38 percent on its first day of trade in September to $93.89, yet fell to $81.99 at Wednesday’s close.

A stake in Snapchat would take Alibaba’s total equity investments over the past 12 months to $6.3 billion from 26 deals, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Article by Serena Saitto from Bloomberg

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Is Pinterest Part of Your Marketing Plan?

Most business owners know the importance of social media and have the important accounts, like Twitter and Facebook.

Customers will usually see icons on business websites, and by following social media they can get discounts, real time updates and other pertinent information. Social media is a great place to engage and share relevant material.

However, there is an often forgotten, but important, social media platform, and that is Pinterest, which has more than 70 million users.

Engage Consumers

Many people think the primary purpose of Pinterest is planning a dream vacation, gathering color palettes for a home update or finding the perfect font for wedding initiations.

However, Pinterest is an excellent platform for any business to engage in.

Not surprising for those businesses with a more visual side, like a design firm or dance studio, but even those on a more traditional business side can benefit from a Pinterest profile.

As the following article looks at, take a view of Bob Bratt’s Pinterest page; he has created an interesting, personal board that can enhance his professional business profile.

Be Creative

For those in a creative position, it’s easy to create Pinterest boards.

A photographer can pin his or her own photos, media publications, other interesting pieces, information on photography, the list goes on.

But what about an executive in a business firm? Maybe his or her job isn’t as visually appealing, so think outside the box. How about pins on a college alma mater or home town? Favorite sports team or food (everyone loves food). Pin about travel or hobbies.

If they can relate to work, great, if not, that’s okay, too.

While pinning to enhance a professional profile, keep these few things in mind:

• In your profile, list your other social media. Bob has a link to twitter, about.me and other business related information.

• Go personal, but not too personal. If this is your business Pinterest page, keep it relevant. Your college alma mater is great; your family photos are not.

• Keep away from controversial subjects. Neutral is better in this situation. Don’t try to change who you are, but it’s not the place to pin boards on material that may make potential clients second guess you or look the other way.

• Have a business board. You can get more personal here with business logos, media about you and your company, and other relevant business pieces.

• Be organized. Go for more boards if you find yourself getting too many unrelated pins on one board.

• Follow. Just like on any other social media, follow other pinners.

Pinterest is a different medium than the Facebook and Twitter.

It’s primarily photo sharing, but you can include links. Your pins and boards also stay more accessible than your old Facebook and twitter posts, where things can get lost and buried in a matter of minutes.

That’s not to say that people can’t come across what you posted weeks or months ago, it’s just not as readily visual.

Give Pinterest a try; you may be surprised how it can enhance your business profile.

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Are Real Estate Investors Social Enough?

When thinking about real estate investing, or the process of using properties to generate income rather than live in, most people don’t think about social media.

Real estate investors work with real estate agents, contractors, buyers and other investors, making the need for social media pertinent.

Every business nowadays, whether looking to connect to just a few people or the world, should be using social media. Real estate investors are no exception.

Make the Connection

As a real estate investor, your goal is to connect with others in the business that will possibly bring business to your company. You should be thinking on both a local level and a worldwide level.

Three ways to use social media to enhance your real estate investing business include:

• Start a blog – A blog gives you credibility on your subject of choice and over time makes you an expert. You can use your blog to showcase the type of work that you do, interact with other real estate investors, share useful information to those in your niche and more. As the following article looks at, Jim Decker, for example, oversees a real estate management company based in Vancouver and uses his blog as both his portfolio and his resume. You don’t have to update your blog multiple times per week, but having a blog in your field is a great way to get recognized by other investors and agents.


• Connect with people in your area – LinkedIn is a professional social media networking platform that can get you connected to other real estate professionals in your area. Join local groups and groups on real estate investing. Further expand your network by following these professionals on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Keep your own social media pages professional, engaging and full of useful information. Building up a following doesn’t happen overnight, but by being consistent with networking you should see results within a few months.


• Learn from investors all over the world – While an investor in Florida may never get you any direct business in your home state of California, networking with other real estate investors is key to growing your business, learning from others and staying up to date on what’s going on in the real estate investment world. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus to meet other investors across the world and learn from each other’s mistakes. A great resource for connecting with investors both locally and nationally is the site Bigger Pockets. The site posts multiple articles per day plus connects you to other investors in your area.

Go Where the People Are

So, why social media for real estate investors? Put simply, social media is where the people are.

One in four people worldwide use Facebook, Twitter has 232 million active accounts, LinkedIn has more than 347 million users and growing, and Google Plus has more than 300 million active users.

The numbers don’t lie – it’s time to start engaging on social media if you’re looking to grow your business and connect with others, particularly when it comes to real estate investing.

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from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/1EGUaK0 via digital marketing coaching

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