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November 17, 2016
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Digital Marketing Terms to Know

By | Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Design, Web Marketing, Website Design and Development | No Comments

Digital Marketing & Web Development Glossary

You’ve finally decided to take the plunge into digital marketing and immediately you are hit with words and concepts that may seem slightly foreign to you. Fear not, the tech world and the marketing world are working together more and more every day, and digital marketers, like Social Eyes Marketing, have the tools not only to help you succeed online, but to help you understand how you are doing it.

If you are totally new to digital marketing and website development this handy guide may serve to answer some questions and help you understand what those tech people are talking about.

 

A

A/B Testing –  For digital ad campaigns, an A/B test allows marketers to determine what will help an ad perform more efficiently. A traditional A/B test will run two ads simultaneously and measure their effectiveness and response from the audience to determine what method is better received with a specified target audience.

ALT Attribute/Tag – The ALT text will be displayed inside the image placeholder while the page is loading and it contributed to overall optimization of a site for search engines performance.

Analytics – Statistics gathered about website users and how they interact with the website they are on. Analytics can reveal such information as how they got to your site, how many people are on your site, how long they browse, or any specific actions they may take on your website as well.

 

B

Browser –  The software that users implement to navigate the World Wide Web. Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox are all examples of browsers.

 

C

Call to Action (CTA) –  A call to actions is text or an image within an ad that encourages the user to take action, such as “Call Now,” “Learn More,” or “Sign Up Today.”

Clickthrough Rate (CTR) –  A percentage that relates to the amount of times an ad was seen (impression) and how often it was clicked on.

Content Management System (CMS) – An application that enables the building and on-going modification of website content with a simple to use interface that supports multiple users. WordPress is the CMS Social Eyes uses for all their clients’ sites.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – CSS is the code that developers use to design the look and overall feel of your website. The CSS sets styles for fonts, images, menu, colors and other visual elements.

 

D

Domain – The web address that is entered in to a browser when a user wants to visit a specific site. Our domain is getsocialeyes.com.

Domain Authority – A number based on a 100 point scale that determine how much strength your website has which contributes to how well it will rank on search engine results pages. The higher the domain authority, the higher search engine will rank your site organically.

Display Advertising – In digital advertising, display ads are graphic ads that are shown on a webpage. They can be graphics or video and encourage the user to click on them to learn more.

 

F

Favicon – A small icon image, usually a logo or variation, that appears in the title bar or browser tab, as well as with bookmarks.

Frequency –  The amount of times an ad is shown to the same consumer during an ad campaign.

 

H

Hosting – Hosting refers to the web servers where your website files are stored and maintained in order to be on the World Wide Web.

HTML – Hypertext Markup Language is the code that is used to build web pages. It is more frequently used in conjunction with other code languages, such as CSS and JavaScript.

 

I

Impressions – The number of times an ad is shown to potential customers or clients.

 

K

Keyword –  Specific words and phrases that a consumer or client might be likely to use in searching for products or services. Keywords are specifically chosen by businesses and advertisers to enable their ad to show up in specific search engine results.

 

L

Landing Page –  The web page users “land” on after they click on a display ad or a paid search ad.

 

M

Meta Tag – An HTML tag that stores information about a web page. They provide information about a website and its content to sort websites and display the most relevant information on a search engine result page.

 

N

Navigation – Often navigation refers to simply the menu which contains the links within site, more broadly however it just denotes the way a user can “navigate” the page. Often navigation is also included at the bottom of a webpage as well.

 

O

Organic – Search results that are organic are ones that appear in search engine results naturally based on their determined relevance, as opposed to paid searches, which provide non-organic links via the placement of paid search engine results.

 

P

Page Authority – A number based on a 100 point scale that determine how much strength a page in your website has in relation to how it will rank on search engine results pages. Page authority refers to the specific page, while domain authority refers to the whole site under the domain.

Pay Per Click (PPC) –  Pay Per Click refers to the pricing model for digital advertising where advertisers pay based on the number of clicks a link or ad receives.

 

R

Reach –  The total amount of users who see your ad.

Remarketing –  Showing ads to people who have already visited your site, encouraging them to reconsider your products or services and revisit your page.

Responsive Design – A website with a responsive design will easily adjusts to the screen it is being viewed on no matter what the device the user is on. This is in contrast to adaptive design where there are several different designs to handle the change among devices.

Return on Investment (ROI) – ROI measures the amount of return, or profit, on an investment in relation to the cost of the investment.

 

S

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engine optimization is the process that helps search engine understand the information that is on your website in order to rank your site higher and more relevantly on search engine result pages. This is the process to getting you to the first page of search results and in a place more likely to be seen by potential customers and clients.

SERP – Search engine results page.

Slider – A “slide show” banner of images or videos that is usually placed on the homepage of a website.

Social Advertising – Running a paid ad campaign on a social media platform, such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

 

T

Targeting –  Targeting is a specific way to identify your most likely customer based on their various attributes.

Behavioral Targeting focuses their efforts on identifying consumers based on their previous online behavior, such as searches, websites visited and online purchases.

Geographic Targeting helps you select an audience for your ad campaign based on geographical identifiers like zip codes, regions, cities, states and countries.

Contextual Targeting is about selecting audiences based on the type of content they are viewing based on the text that is on the website they are visiting.

 

W

WordPress – Web-based, open-source content management system designed to make accessing the site easy for all users.

September 29, 2016
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LinkedIn is Your New Business Card: 5 Tips for Creating an Effective Profile

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

At this point, most businesses have realized that a social media presence is absolutely necessary in the new world of digital marketing. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest—these have all become popular avenues for communicating with potential customers, as well as your loyal following. Even so, LinkedIn, one of the most powerful networking tools in social media, is often over looked as a business marketing tool. Sure people realize their can further their personal brand, look for a job, maybe make a few connections, but as a whole the LinkedIn world is often underutilized, and for many businesses this could be a costly oversight.

So I know, you might be thinking “I want to promote my business, not myself, so LinkedIn isn’t right for me.” However, in the age of digital media, your personal brand is almost as important as your business brand, and in some cases they can become synonymous with each other. Meaning your LinkedIn profile may have more power than you originally thought. LinkedIn is more than just social media, it is a resume, a business card, a personal branding tool, that is easy to use and right at your fingertips.

Steps to LinkedIn Success

Even if you already have a LinkedIn Account, you might not be using it to its full capability. If you’re starting from scratch or making a new profile, these steps will propel your profile to the top of the pile.

  1. Finish Your Profile

The drudgery of these social media set up routine can be a daunting, especially when you are asked specific questions about your job history, volunteer experience, and so on. However, a fully completed profile is essential to LinkedIn success. According to LinkedIn, those with completed profiles are 40% more likely to receive business, as those whose profiles are incomplete. To have a completed, “all-star” LinkedIn profile you will need to have the following:

  • Your current position, don’t forget the description
  • The industry you work in and your current location
  • Educational history
  • At least two of your past positions
  • At least three skills
  • At least 50 connections

  1. Take a Great Headshot

The importance of a professional headshot is increasing as the opportunities for creating personal brands becomes more prevalent. Now, not everyone likes to have their picture taken, but in the digital age allowing people to put a face with your name instills trust in you and the business you are running. So buck up and get in front of the camera.

A few tips for a great headshot:

  • Use a Bright Background – When you are a small thumbnail on a screen full of other faces, brighter backgrounds stand out.
  • Integrate Industry Specific Elements – If you can, also consider using some key identifier in your image. For instance, if you are in construction, an image of you wearing a hardhat tells potential connections your industry in the blink of an eye. Use your best judgment on whether or not this tip would apply well to your industry.
  • Use the Same Headshot Across All Social Media Platforms – Using the same, identifiable image makes it easy for your potential connections to recognize you, meaning your face and name will become much easier for them to remember and trust.

  1. Beef Up Your Headline

Your headline may be the only thing anyone reads on your profile other than you name. So it’s in your best interest to make it good.

  • Use Key Words – Consider key words that might lead potential connections to you. If you are in cosmetology, you might include Hairdresser, Stylist, and Make-up Artist all in your headline.
  • Be Local – According to Social Media Today, if you include your city in your headline your profile will stand out up to 23 times more than someone who doesn’t specify their location. If applicable, add your region or city to encourage those local connections and hopefully gain more exposure and business in your area.

  1. Set a Great Background Photo

The background photo gives you a lot of space to incorporate your brand and industry. Don’t be afraid to use logos or taglines in this images, however even just images related to your industry can be a huge benefit. If your business is highly reliant on local business, consider using a local picture or identifier so that your potential connections know they have found someone in an area that is related to them. The background image for LinkedIn should be 1400 x 425 pixels and in JPG, PNG, or GIF format.

  1. Communicate with Your Connections

  • Send Personal Messages – Often people get so tied up in trying to get more connections on LinkedIn, they lose that personal touch. When you make a new connection, always send a personal message. This encourages deeper engagement, even if you don’t know the person terribly well, or it has been years since you have worked with them, this personal touch reminds them of why they wanted to connect with you in the first place.
  • Endorse Skills – If you can, endorse the skills of the people you connect with. This usually spur them to do the same for you.
  • Congratulate Your Colleagues – LinkedIn is great about informing you when one of your connections starts a new job, has a work anniversary, etc. Click one button and you can like or send a message to your connections to acknowledge their professional milestones. Take the opportunity to congratulate them by adding your own personal touch to these messages, your connections will notice.
  • Join Groups and Engage – Joining groups is a great way to get new connections in your area or your industry. Start conversations, comment on others, and get yourself a more notable online presence.

 

It wasn’t that long ago, that networking for your business meant you had a drawer full of business cards and a Rolodex full of contacts, but in the digital age networking looks a little different. LinkedIn can replace that drawer full of business cards and if you harness its power it can make far more impact than your business card ever could.

January 5, 2016
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3 Ways to Start the New Year Off Right

By | Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments

It’s 2016. As we start to make our New Year’s resolutions (eating healthy, working out), it’s important to make a business-oriented resolution. This is the perfect time to take a step back and analyze how your past year has done, and see where you want this year to take you. Below are three ways to start the New Year off right with your social media management.

Make Goals

Refocus on why you got social media profiles in the first place. Were all your original goals met? What was the objective for getting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Google+? Think about how you want to expand your profiles and what you want your customers and clients to get out of your profiles. Do you want to get more likes? Reach more people through advertising? Post quality content? Make goals for 2016 and do everything you can to reach them.

Create a Strategy

Now that you have goals set, create a strategy that will help you achieve those goals. Going into a social media campaign blind is dangerous. And your goals will not be met. Focus on your goals and make a plan that will help you achieve your goals. If you strategy isn’t working, it’s okay to fix it and try again. It’s okay if you need to start from scratch and try all over, but create a plan before starting a campaign.

Clean up Your Profiles

It’s the perfect time to go through your social media profiles and check to see if everything is correct: address, phone number, hours, etc. Is there anything on your profile that is inaccurate, doesn’t relate or no longer useful? Clutter makes important messages get lost easily and people skim over junk. Display only useful, quality content on your pages and address all questions, comments and concerns.

December 14, 2015
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6 Commandments for Social Media Marketing

By | Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Mobile Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Target Audience, Twitter | No Comments

Social media marketing is ideal because it’s cheap and easy. But it can also be frustrating when you aren’t seeing results.  You can’t sit back and expect to see your social media platforms changing on their own.  It takes time, patience and a clear marketing strategy to get your customers attention. With so many websites, social media platforms and advertising, it’s hard for your business to stand out from the crowd. What captures your customer’s attention?  What’s going to make them look at your business instead of your competitor?

Get ahead of the social media game by following The 6 Commandments for social media marketing and get your message seen, shared and liked.

Have a Focused Strategy

If you don’t have a clear, focused marketing strategy, everything you do on social media will be a waste. You can’t just post statuses, retweet tweets and share photos hoping that that will be enough. Know what you are going to post and when. Research the best times to post content, and conduct your own study to see what content your customers are interested in.

Grow a Meaningful Audience/Following

Many businesses think it’s important to have a lot of likes. And it is important. But it’s more important to have meaningful likes. 50 likes who are loyal and repeating customers is more beneficial than 200 likes when those customers don’t ever purchase your products or services.

Create Quality Content

Once you have your strategy, make sure you are posting quality content that will be read, liked and shared. If your content isn’t getting read, then what was the point of even posting it?

Listen to your Audience

You’ll be getting reviews and comments throughout your social media platforms. Listen to what they have to say and turn the criticism into making your company a better place for business. See what they like and don’t like about you. See what they are saying about your employees, managers and maybe even you. Take everything into consideration and see what you can learn from your customers.

Acknowledge your Audience

Don’t just listen to them. But acknowledge them as well. Comment back saying you heard them. Answer their questions, respond to comments and reviews and prove that you are a human. That you are on social media to have a two-sided conversation with your audience. That when they reach out you, they will get a human response. That you are not on social media to throw deals, news and information in their face, but that you want to tell them about your business and allow them to talk back.

Accessibility

Now that you are listening and acknowledging your audience, do it in a timely manner. Make yourself accessible to your customers. If they complain about your business, you want to get that under control ASAP! Don’t let it sit on your business page for days before you make a move. Respond quickly and professionally and handle any and all situations how you would want to be treated.

November 24, 2015
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Boost Your Social Media Presence

By | Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Social Media, Twitter, Web Marketing | No Comments

It’s not enough to just have a social media account – you must make a presence on the various platforms. What’s the point of having a Facebook page if you aren’t going to use it. Social media has made it easier than ever to communicate with customers around the world. Businesses can share deals, sales and general information where customers and clients can communicate back and fully share their experience by writing a review.  Below are six ways to boost your social media presence.

Look for Opportunities for Discussion

By engaging with your customers you’re showing that you are a real human. Everybody is sick of automated voice calls or talking to someone overseas. By discussing trending topics, you show your audience that you are aware of the latest buzz and ready to get on board with that conversation. Everybody has an opinion. And it seems at this day in age, that everybody loves to express their opinion on social media sites. Look for those opportunities and grab them.

Communication

Communication is key in any relationship. Listen to your audience and understand their needs. Social media is not a way one form of communication. You’re not meant to talk at your audience, but with them.

Produce Good Content

Your audience won’t pay attention to your social media profiles unless you’re producing good, interesting content that pertains to them in some way or another. Experiment to find out what exactly your target audience likes: stories, information, images, video. Besides breaking news topics, keep your content related to your business. Your audience has liked and followed your pages because you have a product or service that they want or need and they are specifically interested in that product. The fasted way to lose followers is by producing content that don’t want or need to see.

Engage with Everyone

It’s as simple as that. Engage with the customers who leave reviews. Engage with the customers who ask questions on your wall. Engage with the customers who tweet about you. Engage with the customers who send you a private message. Engage with everyone and they will communicate back.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags have proven to bring more engagement to tweets and posts. Look for trending hashtags and strike up a discussion on your wall. Create your own brand hashtag and use it consistently.

Give Them a Reason

Give your audience a reason to engage with your business. Provide a benefit so they want to follow you and continue to support your business and social media presence.

October 29, 2015
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4 Steps to Setting up a Facebook Ad

By | Digital Marketing, Facebook, Social Media, Target Audience | No Comments

Businesses love using social media in their marketing strategy for two reasons. 1. It’s free. 2. Hundreds of people can easily be reached, for free. So when business owners hear that they need to be using Facebook ads and spending money, things get a little heated. Facebook ads are important when it comes to marketing your Facebook page. You want to market your Facebook page to gain likes. Likes are crucial for getting your information (posts) out to your customers. Unless a user stumbles upon your Facebook page and scrolls through your wall, they aren’t seeing what you are posting. Only users who like your page will be seeing your posts on a regular basis. You don’t need to spend $100s of dollars to get results, a small budget will get you started and likes will only grow from there.

In four easy steps you can be on your way to setting up a simple “likes campaign” to help drive users to your Facebook page.

  1. Once you get on your ads manager and hit the green button, create an ad, choose the promote your page option. There are 10 different campaigns to choose from, but starting off with campaign to promote your page will familiarize yourself with how Facebook ads work, and will get your some likes in the process. Select your business page.
  2. The next step is to define your target audience. You can be as specific or broad as you like. The more specific you get, the more your campaign will be delivered to people who are more likely to “like” your page. Choose a location, age and gender to get started. The other options (that help make a more specific audience) are choosing a language, interests, behaviors and categories. For example, if your business is a boutique, you might target women who have an interest in fashion, shoes, and clothes.
  3. The third step is to set up a budget. Choose either a lifetime or a daily budget. The lifetime budget will spread your whole budget over the course of the campaign, where a daily budget will spend the budget you set every day through the course of the campaign. For example, in a lifetime budget you would set $50 for the month and Facebook would spend the money evenly throughout the 30 days. A daily budget would spend $50 every day. This is where you will choose if you want to run your campaign continuously until you end the campaign, or you can set a start and end time.  
  4. The last step is the creative section. Choose an image and text and preview how the ad will appear in Facebook. The ad can only have 20% text in the image and 90 characters in the text. Head on over to https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay to use the grid tool. This tool will help you keep your image at 20% text.

Once everything looks right, it’s time to place the order. Your ad will go into review and automatically starts as soon as it’s approved by Facebook. This usually takes 15-30 minutes. The most common reason why ads don’t get approved is because users don’t follow the 20% text rule. You must follow the 20% text rule.

Happy advertising.  

October 12, 2015
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If the Wizarding World Had Modern Technology

By | Facebook, Instagram, Social Media | No Comments

I just got done reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For all you muggles, that’s the last book. It’s always bitter-sweet finishing that series. I laugh, I cry (a lot) but mostly it makes me long for my Hogwarts letter. I like the simple life of spells and potions and a little adventure towards the end of the school year. There are no cellphones, no internet and no status updates.

Speaking of cell phones, I get this argument a lot: Why doesn’t the Wizarding World have cell phones? Simple. Cell phones were still fairly new. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone takes place in 1991, and the first cell phone was put on the market in 1984, only 7 years before. Sure, cell phones had gotten slightly smaller than the 80’s brick, but it was still big, bulky and hard to carry around. And people didn’t carry around cell phones in the 90’s like they do today. Simply put, there was no need for cell phones (not to mention the main characters were eleven in the first book).

Oh, how different the Wizarding World would be with modern technology.

For starters, owls would simply be pets. There would be no need to send mail if students could call or text their parents from Hogwarts. And what fun would that be? Getting mail is the best!

Molly Weasley wouldn’t have a reason for her clock. Molly’s clock is consisted of multiple hands, each hand representing one of the Weasley family members. The hands show exactly where each member of the family is: Hogwarts, The Ministry, The Burrow, etc. With social media, Molly would know exactly where her children and husband are by their status updates.

Screen shot 2015-10-07 at 2.31.23 PM

Speaking of Facebook statuses, Voldemort would have found Harry a lot sooner. Let’s be honest, some people (teenagers) aren’t the smartest when it comes to social media. They post way too much information on their personal lives, including where they are.

Screen shot 2015-10-07 at 2.47.07 PM

The Daily Prophet would be all online. No need for newspapers with moving portraits, printing is a waste of money when you can post it on the internet for free. Howlers would be useless. The sorting hat wouldn’t be needed when you can check everybody’s social media pages to determine where students should be placed. The list goes on and on. But, Harry Potter wouldn’t be the same if witches and wizards had modern technology. These are the kind of things that make it so magical.
And never forget, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

September 16, 2015
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Content is King

By | Digital Marketing, Web Marketing, website | No Comments

Content marketing is one of the most important trends this year. With content marketing you are able portray the exact reason why your customers need your product or service, without being in their face about it. In order to get sales and grow your business, you need to be advertising where your customers are. They are online, reading content their friends posted on Facebook or retweeted on Twitter.

We’ve all heard it before, word of mouth is, ideally, the best form of advertising. It’s cheap, and society tends to trust their friends. If your mom or brother uses a product and swears by it, wouldn’t you want to try it out? Content marketing is essentially the online version of word of mouth advertising when your content is being shared by customers.

Since content is king is the online world, I’ve compiled a list of popular royalty to help you understand exactly why content is important and needs to be a part of your marketing strategy.

1. Content marketing is there to tell your customers why they need your product or service. How will it benefit your customer? Without selling your product or service, your content marketing needs to be truthful, straightforward, and tell it how it really is. Princess Mia Thermopolis Renaldi (The Princess Diaries) is just a normal teenager trying to make her way in the world. Without being in-your-face, Mia subtly shows Genovia why she would be a make a good Princess for their country.

2. Your content will bring in traffic to your site. With links, your article can direct users to other areas of your website, allowing potential customers to see what other products and services you offer. Those links can also connect users to other blog posts that are relevant to the ones they are currently reading, allowing those posts to get more views and your information to continue getting shared and liked. King Joffrey (Game of Thrones) might be selfish, hated by viewers and a total brat, but he does get a lot of attention, which is exactly what you want your content marketing to get.

3. Content marketing is a great way to engage with both new and existing customers. Great content will keep customers coming back and will keep your customers loyal to your brand. Simba (The Lion King) left his pride at a young age but when he returned years later, his pride was waiting for him and ready for Simba to be their king.

 

September 4, 2015
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Social Media vs a Blind Date

By | Digital Marketing, Ello, Facebook, Food for thought, Instagram, Pinterest, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments

First dates are a work of art. We’ve all been there, we’ve all experienced the nauseated feeling we get as we wait for the doorbell to ring or experience the (what-seems-like-forever) walk to the door. We’re already dreading something that hasn’t even happened yet. And there’s a 50% chance we might actually have a good time on this particular date. So, why do we feel this way? Maybe it’s that we get so comfortable with what we know, that we are afraid to branch out and try new things. i.e., everybody freaked out when Facebook added the timeline to your personal wall.

“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” – everybody on my newsfeed after that incident.

So what, Facebook changed in appearance and a little in how we do things? Did it make it better? Eh, that’s debatable. It definitely didn’t make it worse. The point is, Facebook forced us to get out of our comfort zone and try something new. The real question is, how have we coped when new social media sites have come along?

Twitter was an instant success and Instagram took off. So we weren’t afraid of those sites. Google + hasn’t been doing nearly as well as it thought it would and Ello is barely in existence. Some social media sites hit it off and others don’t.

But, why do we like certain sites and not the others? Did we try a “blind date” with all of them and decide which sites we agreed to go steady with? I’ll admit, I’m not that keen on certain ones either. I tried out Twitter, but I haven’t fully committed but Instagram has stolen my heart. One of the problems could have been that Twitter only allows so many characters in one tweet (trust issues). How can you trust something when you may not be getting the full story?!

The whole point of this rant is that maybe we should give all social media platforms a try before dumping them before the relationship starts. Just like a good, old-fashioned blind date, trying a new social media platform is a good thing to do before committing to just one. Try them out, see what you like and don’t like about each platform. And give them time. Sometimes you just flat out need some good quality time alone with each of them to find out what works for you and what doesn’t.

No matter what happens, Facebook will always be there to welcome you back.