How to Build an Effective YouTube Channel

With digital advertising set to pass the $77 billion mark next year and surpassing TV advertising spend for the first time, there has never been a better time to get your company a video presence online. With a new suite of tools to help small businesses set themselves up, YouTube is the platform to get started on. Whilst there are other video platforms out there like Vimeo, Vine and Instagram, with a billion users per month, it would be folly not to focus on YouTube.

But where do you start when it comes to creating and then honing your YouTube presence? A sensible approach would be setting up your YouTube channel. Whilst your videos will hopefully get discovered through search, it’s here you ultimately want people interested in your brand to end up. In this way think of your YouTube channel like a second website.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON YOUTUBE - Getting started on YouTube series

Did you find the advice and tips helpful in making money on youtube? Please share what worked for you in the comments box below.

5 Research-Driven Tips for Increasing Sales on Your Website

If you’re struggling to get sales, you probably do not need more traffic. Instead, you need to work on improving your conversion rates. Not only will this have more of a long-term, compounding effect on sales, but it will cost you next to nothing.

Research from Eisenberg Holdings found that the average company spends a meagre $1 to convert website visitors, but spend $92 get visitors to bring people to their website. Naturally, many businesses will keep struggling to close sales.

4 Lesser Known Facebook Ad Tips to Get the Most For Your Budget

I’m a huge fan of how easy Facebook has made it to advertise on their platform. You can create a campaign with zero experience and have it submitted to Facebook Ad Approvers within minutes. It’s truly a powerful time we live in.

Want to know what’s not amazing? The fact that there are some incredibly profitable elements that 99% of Facebook Advertisers don’t know about. In this post, I’m going to help you:

• Find the ads that work best for you
• Find the audience segments that work best for you
• Spend your money in the smartest, most strategic way possible
• Improve your interest targeting

With these tips, you’ll be able to eliminate the unprofitable parts of your campaigns, find the hidden gems, and massively improve your targeting.

7 Free Social Media Tools to Make You More Efficient

If you manage social media in your business, you’ll know just how much hard work and effort goes into developing a social media strategy. Coupled with reporting, responding to customers, and creating, scheduling and tracking content, it can be quite a challenge.

However, there are a huge range of tools you can use to help you become more efficient and effective in your job. So, whether you’re a full-time Social Media Manager, or have other responsibilities within the business, these tools can help free up your time for other important tasks. Here’s a list of seven popular tools to get you started.

5 Tips to Master Your Brand’s Customer Service on Twitter

Twitter might be struggling, but brand customer service on the platform is more popular than ever. In the last 2 years, Tweets to brands and their customer service handles have increased by 250%. Many people also choose Twitter over other social platforms for customer service. In fact, 80% of customer service requests on social media happen on Twitter.

The reasons behind this preference are pretty clear. Twitter allows customers to quickly and easily get the attention of brands. The resulting conversation between a brand and a customer is public, so customers can hold brands accountable while the rest of the Twitterverse watches. For consumers, there’s an opportunity to publicly shame a brand until they get what they want. For brands, there’s an opportunity to boost (or damage) their image to attract (or deter) existing and prospective customers.

How To Start A Profitable Blog 2016

What do you think about this video on making money through blogging? Share your comments in the box below.

Here’s What Every Solopreneur Should Know about Social Media

Aren’t you sick and tired of trying to figure out this social media stuff? I can’t say I blame you. Social media for solopreneurs can be quite a challenge.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably tried tons of different advice. You might have even had some success.

But then you hit a wall.

It’s like you’re hitting your Twitter glass ceiling. You just can’t seem to attract new followers.
On top of that, your website isn’t getting much traffic from social media. You may have even considered giving up!

Here’s the thing: social media marketing doesn’t have to be hard for solopreneurs. Chances are, there might be just one mistake that you’re making that is keeping you from moving forward.

Fortunately, there are ways to improve your social media marketing. Social media doesn’t have to be some insurmountable challenge that gives you a headache just by thinking about it.

50 Small Business Ideas for People Who GET Social Media

Social media is an essential tool for many different businesses. But for some, knowledge of social media is an absolutely integral part of running a business. If you really GET social media, here are some potential small business ideas you can use to build a business around your social media expertise.

Social Media Business Ideas

How to Crush It on the Top 4 Social Media Platforms

You’ve heard it a million times.

Entrepreneurs and solopreneurs need to use social media to grow their audience and interact with prospects and clients.

It’s true. Social media is one of the most effective ways to get in front of the people you want to serve.

But so many entrepreneurs are doing it wrong.

Social Media Calendar Template for Small Business

Word Doc – click to download
Excel Version – click to download
PDF Version – click to download

---

This social media calendar template for small business is for YOU!

45 Creative Social Media Marketing Tips You Don’t Hear Every Day

Social media’s potential impact for small businesses cannot be understated. But if you’ve been using social media for awhile, then you probably already know a lot of the standard tips. 

However, there are plenty of other things you can do on social media aside from just posting product photos and responding to customer inquiries. Here are some social media marketing tips that you don’t hear every day.

How to Use Social Media For Marketing Creatively

Top 10 Social Media Plugins for WordPress

Social media is a crucial component for any online marketing strategy. If you’re running your small business website on the WordPress platform, it’s incredibly easy to integrate social. There are hundreds of ready made social media plugins for WordPress to choose from.

Your choice of social media plugins for your WordPress website will depend on which social platforms you use actively, what kind of content you offer on your site, and the best look and placement of social tools that complements your website design. From simple to richly featured, below are some of the best WordPress plugins for social media.

Why Blogs Fail (and Why Yours Could be Next)

You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.

You’re writing posts readers seem to enjoy. Your traffic is increasing. A popular blogger has noticed you and tweeted one of your posts.

You’re putting in the time day after day and week after week to make your blog successful. And, little by little, you’re seeing results.

So why do you feel empty?

How To Create A Quiz With Social Media Lead Generation Software

There are plenty of ways to generate business leads online, but have you ever tried to create a quiz for social media lead generation?

Social media quizzes have a knack for driving traffic, engagement, revenue and generating leads. So today, we’ll be showing you how to create your own social media quiz.

9 Lessons Bloggers Can Learn from Marathoners to Maintain Momentum When Blogging Gets Tough

Sweat.

Tears.

Hair pulling.

Nail chewing.

This is just some of what your body can endure when you have a blog. Or when you attempt to write a post.

It’s so much work, and the stress can be brutal at times. So much that it makes you want to quit.

7 Ways to Keep Your Information Safe on the Internet

It’s almost unavoidable to buy products online or give our personal information to trusted websites. Unfortunately, that information isn’t always safe and criminals could easily access sensitive knowledge about you. To help, we’ve made a guide for regular people who don’t have time to develop a deeper understanding about wireless networks, yet still need to protect their data over wireless channels.

Top 10 Tools That Will Revolutionize Screenshots in 2017

Modern operating systems come with several built-in options for taking screenshots. The most popular one is the Print Screen button, but apart from this, there are also small applications such as the well-known Snipping tool in Windows 7. However, if you want an advanced screen capture program, you may consider using one of the following:

8 Tips to Attract Your First 250K Instagram Followers

Instagram is hands-down one of the most popular social media networks. There is so much available attention to capture, which is why building a large following is such a top priority for brands and individuals.

A friend of mine, Jessica Sorkin, better known as @thehandyj on Instagram, has built a very engaged following of more than 277,000 in a very short period of time. Warning: some of her content is NSFW.

5 Tips For Effective Twitter Ads

What have you found to work when advertising on Twitter – are there any tips and tactics you can share? If so, then please share them in the comments box below

10 Secrets to Grow Your Website Traffic

When you have a website, your number one concern is always growing traffic to the website. There is no all-in-one solution for this. What works for one website may not always work for other websites. You need to find the formula that works for your website, and it may involve using a number of different tools and resources to get the results you are looking for.

 Here are 10 secrets that will help you achieve more traffic growth to your website.

Music As A Marketing Tool Focused On Millennials

As all social media users know, millennials are now ruling the economics, making up more than 25% of the US population, with a purchase power of around $1 trillion dollars, and it’s not just me who says this: you can check the numbers on PTTOW, CNBC, and Forbes.
Because we spent a large part of our lives under the influence of electronics and social media, we like to see brands going an extra mile in order to sell us stuff.

Millennials are probably the first generation of buyers who prize the emotional bond between them and the seller. In order to make a millennial buy, you need to represent the complex set of values they appreciate and reach to them, speaking their own language.

5 Steps to Guarantee Online Marketing Campaign Success

It’s time you know that an Effective Marketing Campaign doesn’t need to be too difficult or expensive. All successful online marketing campaigns should be within the grasp of any business whatever your budget is.

 An organized, planned online marketing campaign circling through different targeted sites is not too difficult to coordinate, does not have to be too costly and can generate sales and traffic faster than any other online marketing efforts.

Committing to these steps below and following them through can create a cost effective campaign and guaranteed investment returns within a short period.

7 Effortless Ways to Earning Money Online

Are you looking for the easy ways to make money online? Then you’ve come to the right place! For a few years now, making money over the internet has been a hot topic. However, we all see the new ways of achieving those goals tend to pop up every day due to the ever-changing nature of the Web.

Here, I’ve compiled a list of easier and efficient ways that you can use to generate high incomes, and you won’t get caught off guard. Just have a look and choose from the list that best suits your taste.

How to Drive Sales With AdWords’ New Price Extensions for Mobile Text Ads

Imagine trying to sell your product in a crowded city square with a single poster on a huge wall covered in them. You may get a couple of buyers but, more than likely, your ad will blend in among all the others, no matter how good of a product you’re selling.

Now imagine you have a sales rep holding that same poster in front of the wall, personally greeting potential customers. More sales, right?

Take it a step further, and add a fancy booth with a megaphone announcing all of your latest deals. Customers will be drawn to you, leaving your competitors’ product posters serving as a backsplash for your main attraction.

This is what the new AdWords Price Extension can do for you, extending the revenue you pull in with each ad.

How We Doubled Email Signups in 30 Days: Our Strategies to Get More Email Subscribers

We wrote a post awhile back about email list building, and in the course of writing that post, we got the Christmas morning jitters. We wanted to try every single idea we could.
And so we did.
 And wouldn’t you know it, the ideas worked!

I’m really happy to share with you our experience from an exciting month of email list building and the strategies we used to get more email subscribers. The hugely encouraging aspect to all this is that our simple email changes can be done by anyone.

 If you’re interested in growing your email list and gaining new subscribers, feel free to borrow any of the ideas we’ll share below. I’ll let you know exactly how we did it. 

How To Find Anyone’s Email Address In 60 Seconds Or Less

If you’re a specialist in SEO or link acquisition, then you’ll know that generic email addresses are as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to outreach.

You need to develop personal connections with influencers, regardless of whether you work in PR or SEO, it’s always the same.

But finding the right person’s email address can be a draining, time-consuming task.
Who has time for that?

Well, actually, it’s not so difficult, or time-consuming.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the exact step-by-step process our agency uses to find (almost) anyone’s email address, in 60 seconds or less!

How to Choose The Right Keywords to Optimize For

Arguably the most important aspect of writing or editing an article with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind is choosing the best target keyword phrase.

 It can also be one of the trickiest strategies of content SEO to master. But if you choose the right keyword phrase for a given article and weave it into an engaging and well-written piece, your article could be well on its way to a page one ranking in search engines for that phrase.

Google is Splitting its Search Index, Prioritizing Mobile over Desktop

Google is splitting its index of search results into separate versions for mobile and desktop, a change which will happen in the coming months.

The split will see Google’s index broken into a rapidly updated mobile version, and a desktop version which will not be updated as frequently.

5 Stellar Ideas for Boosting Your Enterprise in 2017

I’m guessing that World Space Week is not yet on your planning radar, and unless you happen to work for NASA, Lockheed Martin or IMAX (which is airing a galaxy of recent sci-fi giants that week) I totally understand. Hell, you’re boosting your enterprise after all, you don’t have time to count stars!
Nonetheless, I’d like to suggest that you take the week of October 3 as a time to explore new horizons for your brands and accelerate the opportunity for your business to boldly go where it’s never gone before. To help you launch this initiative, here are five stellar ideas from five marketing supernovas.

The Social Media Glossary: 226 Essential Definitions

A lot can change in a year, especially in the world of social media. It can be difficult to keep up with all of the terms and slang used with the introduction of new technologies and platforms, so we decided it was time to update our Social Media Glossary. Like previous editions of the glossary, this is a living document that will continue to grow as we add more terms and expand our definitions.

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

Gary Vaynerchuk's Top 10 Rules For Success (@garyvee)

What an interesting video - a solid foundation for achieving SUCCESS. Did you find this video helpful, informative, inspirational? Share yor views in the comments box below.

Is Sunday a Good Day to Send a Marketing Email?

Ah, Sundays. A day of rest. A perfect day to relax, kick up your feet, watch some football or venture outdoors. Pop on some comfy clothes and let your mind drift away from your hectic week. Sunday is when everyone detaches from their laptops and cell phones. Why would you send a marketing email on Sunday? No one will open it or click on your offer. Or will they?

We analyzed our email metrics from the past year. We came across something interesting - Sunday has actually performed pretty well for open and click rates. It ranks in the top three for open rates and is number one for for click-through rate.

Is this a real phenomenon? Is this something others are experiencing? Was our data biased? Was it consistent with other findings? We decided to do some digging.

How to Use LinkedIn to License Your Concepts for New Products

For more than 16 years now, I’ve been teaching people how to license their ideas for new products. I was attracted to the licensing model because it enabled me to focus on what I liked -- being creative, working with my hands -- on my own time. 

If a product I conceived of became successful, I’d earn royalties, which are a form of passive income. I knew passive income was worth seeking out and that the multiplying effect was important.

12 Easy-to-Use Content Creation Tools You Will Fall in Love With

As far as marketing on the World Wide Web is concerned, it’s safe to say that the most important aspect of it right now is inbound marketing. As opposed to shoving your service or product down your customers’ throat and sounding like a used car salesman (“For you, my friend, I make special price!”), and doing so through paid campaigns, spam, or online ads, you need to be more focused on providing high-quality content, such as blogs, ebooks, or webinars potential customers can actually use, before they decide to pick your product as a solution to their problem.


Providing informative content establishes you as an authority in the field, and instills trust into your reader’s minds, which are then more likely to make a purchase, because you went the extra mile to help them. This approach works because it’s organic, and it’s here to stay.

That being said, inbound marketing does require a lot of work, and you need to have a skill set that is broad enough in order to produce versatile, high-quality content. This is the reason behind our list, which contains 12 simple, yet effective tools you will go crazy over, and which will help you create amazing content.

8 Tactics I Used To Get My First 1,000 Email Subscribers

So you’re on your computer searching Google, while sipping on your cup of coffee, trying to find ways to build your email list.

After all, you know that if you build your list you will sell more products and finally get your message out into the world.

12 Tricks That Make You The Master Of Google Search

There’s a hidden side of Google that only a select few people take advantage of. When you discover the amazing things you can do with Google, you’ll become a search master. You’ll be light years ahead of the people who don’t know this stuff.

Enough talking – let’s get right to learning the 12 Google search tricks. Are you ready to have your mind blown?

Facebook Testing Business Page Templates

Facebook is currently running a test of new templates for business Pages. The new options enable Page owners to choose from dedicated Page layout and CTA buttons relative to their products and services - here's an overview of how the process works.

24 Predictions for Social Media and Social Media Marketing in 2017

The end of the year is fast approaching, which means Christmas jingles, New Year’s resolutions and… prediction posts. And while the ever-shifting social landscape eventually renders many such prognostications invalid, it’s still worth analyzing what might be on the horizon as a means of trying to understand where we’re at, and where we’re headed, as we plan for the next 12 months.

Last year, my predictions mostly pointed in the right direction, so again, I’ve decided to get in early and put down a few of my thoughts on where each platform is going, before the upcoming onslaught of ‘looking ahead’ posts.
So here are my 22 predictions for each of the major social platforms in 2017, starting with the big one – Mark Zuckerberg’s ever-expanding giant.

Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote | ICON 2016

Great inspirational video - what did you think? As always do share your comments in the section below.

6 Crazy Social Media Ad Ideas to Make You Look Like A Big Deal

Perception is everything. In the business world, people are naturally attracted to the biggest names, whether you call them influencers, experts, or [insert industry here] rock stars.

But what if you aren't a big name yet? What if you're just starting out and looking to make a name for yourself? How can you get on the radar of people you want to do business with in the future?

Social media advertising makes it super easy to appear superbad. You can bias the way people think about you and make yourself (or your company) appear bigger than you are.

Here are six crazy ideas that will help you look like a really big deal using social media ads.

You’ve Got Mail: 5 Things Your Subject Lines Are Missing

Ah, the elusive subject line. Just when you thought you wrote something brilliant, you find that your open rates are less than impressive. How could writing 5-7 words be so hard? You used to write 2,000-word papers in college. You can form a sentence in your sleep. No really, you’re a sleep talker.

The truth is that subject lines are the doorway into your email campaigns. If that doorway isn’t enticing, no one will go on to click your emails, let alone buy your products.

 In fact, Convince and Convert reports that 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone. Even more challenging, your readers are inundated each and every day by a tidal wave of other emails vying for their attention. So how do you write email subject lines that cut through the noise?

How To Analyze Your Competitors Using Social Data

If your business is taking social media seriously, you will have noticed that social media is gradually getting harder to succeed at.  This is a natural progression of the channel, and the changes made by the platforms are largely to be expected.  Take Facebook for instance.  They have little choice but to reduce NewsFeed reach algorithmically for certain types of posts as there is only limited space, and the volume of content being produced by users and pages is constantly growing.

With this in mind, the need to get ahead of your competitors and leverage every impression your content receives is key.  To do this, we recommend analyzing your competitors’ efforts and comparing key performance metrics to your own.  By understanding their performance in detail, you can optimize your plans for success.

The first step is to decide who you’re classing as your competitors – this may not be as obvious as you think.  With social media platforms, your competitors should be classed as any of the following (with the more you can track the better):

• Your direct, traditional competitors
• Those competing for the attention of a similar audience to you, even if in a different sector
• Businesses with a similar content strategy, albeit for a different audience

9 Facebook Brand Bots You Need to Start Chatting With Today

More than 11,000 chatbots are now conversing with real people on Facebook’s Messenger platform. 

What is a chatbot? As we’ve previously explained, a chatbot is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to simulate conversation and perform tasks. Chatbots are increasingly being used by brands for a number of reasons.

First, they’re useful to automate processes—from simple tasks like taking pizza orders to more complex assignments like handling a parking ticket dispute. 

Second, chatbots bring the customer service experience to life. Once you type a simple “Hi” in the chat window, most bots will respond immediately, answering questions conversationally and in real-time. It feels more like talking to a friend than a customer service agent.

Finally, now that Messenger has over 1 billion active monthly users, it makes sense for brands to enhance their customer’s user experience with a platform that everyone is already using.  
  
Wondering where a chatbot might fit in your business’ marketing or customer service strategy? Here’s a roundup of brands who are using chatbots effectively.

9 Facebook chatbots that are worth messaging

Social Media News You Need to Know: October 2016 Roundup

Candy and pumpkins and costumes—oh my!

October’s known for being spooky, but this month the most ‘frightening’ social update was Facebook’s addition of Halloween-themed Reactions and Live masks (though the social network also announced a myriad of other updates).

Meanwhile, Twitter shuttered Vine and pumped up Periscope, Instagram celebrated six years, Pinterest delved further into ads, and LinkedIn added new tools for job seekers.

Lots happened on social in October. That’s why we’ve done the hard work of rounding up all the updates—big and small—from all the major networks so you don’t miss a thing.

Table of contents

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Snapchat

Hootsuite

Pinterest Marketing: How To Get Pinterest Followers (3 STEPS!)

This is an awesome video that shows in 3 simple steps how you can use Pinterest to increase your business profits. What do you think?  Have you used Pinterest with success?  Do let us have your feedback in the comments section below.

How to Make Money With Social Media

There are more money-making opportunities on social media than you might realize. 

Social media, in fact, can be quite lucrative.

Many experts say that social media is for connecting with people, and not for selling, but at some point, you're going to want to leverage the connections you create. If you've built up enough trust with your followers, they'll be more inclined to check out your recommendations and the links you share.

Here are six ways you can make money on social media

25 Tools for Social Media Marketers

Want to simplify your daily social media marketing tasks?

Looking for a list of helpful apps and tools?

The right apps can make a world of difference in the life of a busy social media marketer.

In this article, you’ll discover 25 of the top tools and apps shared on the Social Media Marketing podcast.

Discover 25 top apps and tools for social media marketers.

How to Profit From Your Social Media Profiles

There is only ONE reason you should have a presence on social media for your business.
That's right. Just ONE.

The reason is - to use the platform to connect with ideal prospects and get them on YOUR mailing list.

It doesn't matter how many fans, followers or connections you have if those "relationships" aren't generating revenue for your business.

To get results from the time spend tweeting, updating your Facebook page and posting on LinkedIn, you need to have in place a strategy that converts your connections to email subscribers.

Once a social media connection joins your email list, you now have the opportunity to get to know them, build a relationship and (when the time is right) extend an offer of a product or service to help them solve a problem they are facing.

Now that we are clear on what you should be using social media for, let's review 7 ways you can leverage your profiles to grow your email list:

Make Money on YouTube!

What do you guys think about this video? Over 5 million views!!

3 Free Tools to Help You Understand Your Online Audience

Technology is a massively important tool for growing your company. Remarketing, Facebook ads, and your website are just a few marketing tools that have the potential to drive amazing business growth and profits.

But all the technology in the world won't help you if you don't understand your customers.
It blows my mind how many companies fail to understand their target market(s).

(Spoiler alert: selling to "everyone" isn't a target market)

Your business needs to nail the precise demographics, behaviors, and interests of your customers so that:

• You can find more customers like them and sell more stuff.
• You can align your company (sales, marketing, customer service, product management) to all be marketing, selling, servicing, building the right stuff, which has huge leverage on the effectiveness of your organization.

If you don't understand your target market(s), you probably won't be able to scale.
Buyer personas, or fictional representations of your ideal customers, are notoriously difficult to build, and thus are underutilized. But here are three technologies that make building customer personas ridiculously easy.

1. Google Analytics

 

More than 10 million websites use Google Analytics. If you have Google Analytics set up for your website (and you should) you can start gaining insights about your target market.

You'll want to focus on the Demographics and Interests sections of Google Analytics. Basically what you're trying to figure out is, of the people who actually buy stuff from you, what are the smoking guns in terms of common denominators?

 

2. Facebook Audience Manager

 

Because Facebook has more than a billion users logging in every day they have tons of information about what people buy, what they like, their demographics, and so much more.
If you have a Facebook business page (and you should), you have access to their Audience Insights tool, which you can use to analyze either:

• Everyone on Facebook - You can think of this as a way to do a user survey to understand what a market looks like in general.
• People who like your Page - Here you'll take a more targeted look at people who are interested in your business and service.
• Any custom list of emails and/or phone numbers that you upload - This'll give you insights into the people who have bought from you, or converted in some other way (signing up for a newsletter, whitepaper, webinar, etc.).

Once you've chosen an audience to analyze, Facebook will tell you everything about them. You'll discover job titles, education level, lifestyle, location, household information, purchasing behavior, and much more.

3. Twitter Audience Insights

 

If you have a Twitter account (and you should), you can use Twitter's audience insights tool to figure out the different interests, demographics, occupation, lifestyle, consumer behavior, political affiliation - there are literally hundreds of dimensions, too many to list out.
You can do this analysis on your Twitter followers, or on any Twitter ad campaign that you run. This is important because ads let you reach people who aren't already your customers - so it's less biased.





Also, just like Facebook, you can upload emails and Twitter will do this demographic analysis on your list.

This year, spend time to really get to know your audience. Using these new website tools, it's easier than ever to do this research and create fantastic buyer personas.
Knowing exactly who your target market is - their demographics, behaviors, and interests - is a huge force multiplier that you can use to drive massive growth.

Have you tried these tools? Are there any other tools that you have helpful? Please do share them in the comments section below.

Source