SEO stands for
Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of obtaining free traffic from the
listed results on search engines. All
major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo have these listings.
What Social Media should I be on?
That is a great question! There are a lot of Social Platforms out there. Every one is unique and gives you an amazing medium to converse with clients/customers whether it's feed-back, complaints, or praise. It's never been so easy to provide real-time customer support. With Social Media, clients/customers can ask for support and receive it without making a single phone call.
So what Social Media should you be on? Well...all of them, if time and resources allow. Each one is different and adds value to your brand. With each Social Platform you command the more chances you have to engage with current and future clients / customers.
Different people are on different Social Platforms. While there are people on all of them, they may choose not to follow you on more then one. Being on all of them increases your chance to be seen, it extends you potential reach.
If you can't be on all of them because of time restraints or other reasons, then f.i.t. should do a decent job at keeping you engaged with your clients/customers. What is f.i.t.? Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Why f.i.t.? Most people are active on Facebook, it's thee platform to use if there ever was one. It provides easy sharing and engagement. Instagram, everyone loves pictures and it's a subtle way of staying relevant and in their minds. Twitter because it's one of the best ways to connect with your clients/customers via engagement and customer service. Pinterest may also be considered, because like Instagram you can share picture with people, only it's with everyone who happens to be on Pinterest at the time. It does take more time if depending on who organized you want your boards to be.
Remember the more major platforms you are on the better you chances there are of getting exposure and interacting with clients / customers. If you are strapped for time, f.i.t. (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) will get you going and create a solid social presence on the web. Remember to be engaging.
List of Main Social Media Platforms:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Google+
Youtube
*Note: Social Media platforms are not limited to the list above! There are Hundreds of smaller Social Networks.*
Art of War for Business #1
So I think I'll start this blog off right, with some passages from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. It's important that business is like war in some sense and completely different in others. War is like business because you are trying to expand your "state" aka your company. When expanding in business your are taking to take a share of the market from your competition/enemy. You have to outperform, outmaneuver, and out think them, if not, you are in an inferior position and are more susceptible to being take out of business.
1). "War is a matter of vital important to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied."
Marketing in a sense is like war to the state, it's of vital importance to the survival of your company. Marketing can lead you to prosperity on the flip side it can (or lack of) lead you to ruin. Marketing is the life line of your company; your food supply of new customers (Don't eat them, it's a figure of speech!) With the right marketing you will grow strong, with the wrong kind, you will wither and die.
It's, like Sun Tzu said, very important to "thoroughly" study "war" and I couldn't agree more. How do you compete if you don't know how to wage war, or in our case great marketing campaigns. If you know what you are doing, you can prepare and execute better campaigns that better help the potential future customer/client the value your product or service adds to their lives. When you know what you are looking for, you can better understand why other people are doing certain things that you might be able to incorporate into your marketing strategies.
2). "You should not linger in desolate ground"
If something isn't working, change it or move on. Your time and resources are better spent on something that will yield a return for your efforts and help you grow to meet the goals you have set for your self and your company.
3). "In enclosed ground, resourcefulness is required."
Business is enclosed ground, there is only so much money, time, and resources that you have available to you. It's important to push your ability to stretch what you have to the limits and think outside the box. You won't get a head by throwing money at something, especially when you are on a tight budget. Social Media gives smaller businesses a fighting chance when it comes to staying in contact with customers, getting feedback, providing inexpensive and timely customer service, no more throwing money down the drain hoping that your commercial gets see or heard by the right people. Facebook gives you the ability to really target your audience when it comes to ads. Google's Adwords gives you the ability to get your message to your potential customer that are searching for that relevant topic.
There are a ton of SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) that help you grow a scalable business that is cheaper then trying to make the software yourself. It let's you focus on growing your business instead of stressing about how you are going to purchase additional hardware to hold your data, etc.
There are many things that you can do to make sure that you are staying competitive while also being very resourceful. It's all about how you go about it, those who aren't resourceful, aren't taking the step to make sure they are competitive are doomed to fail and die (the company not the person).