@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Marketing

Instagram Ads Debut: A New Era of Visual Marketing

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Just a year after Facebook acquired Instagram for nearly $1 billion, the photo-sharing platform has officially joined the ad game. In November 2013, Instagram began rolling out its first sponsored posts, giving select brands access to a growing audience of over 150 million active users.

This move represents much more than just another advertising channel — it signals a major shift in how brands communicate: from text to image, from static to lifestyle, from desktop to mobile.

What Instagram Ads Look Like (So Far)

Instagram has committed to a “high-quality, creative-first” ad experience. The initial sponsors include heavyweights like Michael Kors, Adidas, Ben & Jerry’s, and General Electric. These ads appear in the user feed and are clearly labeled as “Sponsored,” but otherwise blend seamlessly with organic content.

Key characteristics of the initial rollout:
– Image-driven, single-photo format
– No clickable links (yet)
– Ad creative must match Instagram’s “native aesthetic”
– Feedback encouraged — users can hide ads and explain why

Why This Matters for Digital Marketers

This isn’t just about getting in front of more eyeballs. It’s about tapping into a younger, more visually engaged audience — one that increasingly avoids traditional display ads, scrolls fast, and engages with authenticity over polish.

Instagram offers:
– A mobile-first experience where attention is highly focused
– Strong user engagement (much higher than Facebook or Twitter at the time)
– A culture of lifestyle storytelling — ideal for brand narratives and emotional resonance

The Facebook Ecosystem Effect

Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, this move is likely just the beginning. Eventually, Instagram ads may benefit from:
– Facebook’s ad targeting infrastructure
– Cross-platform campaign tools
– Advanced analytics and conversion tracking

It’s not hard to imagine that in the near future, marketers will be able to target users on Instagram based on their Facebook behavior, interests, or shopping activity — a combination that could be extremely powerful.

Strategic Takeaway

Instagram’s foray into advertising signals a broader truth: visual content is no longer optional. Brands that want to stay relevant must learn to communicate in photos, motion, and micro-moments.

To stay ahead:
– Focus on visual branding and consistency across platforms
– Test photo-based campaigns on Instagram before rolling them into broader ad strategy
– Prioritize mobile-optimized, vertical-friendly creative
– Watch closely — interactive and video ads are almost certainly coming

Social Integration and Influence

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. The rise of image-first communication has already reshaped Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn — all of which have expanded support for images, videos, and multimedia posts over the past 12 months.

This shift also ties back to earlier trends we covered:
– Google’s visual emphasis in search results (authorship photos, image carousels)
– Vine’s 6-second videos
– Facebook’s push for mobile video previews

Instagram’s ad launch is not a revolution — it’s a confirmation. The visual social web is here — and your strategy better reflect it.

References

Instagram. (2013, October 24). Sponsored photos are coming to Instagram. Instagram Blog. https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/sponsored-photos-are-coming-to-instagram

Constine, J. (2013, October 24). Instagram’s first ads go live. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/24/instagram-first-ad/

Greenberg, K. (2013, November 1). Instagram’s visual ad strategy. Adweek. https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/instagram-ads-michael-kors-ben-jerrys/

Laird, S. (2013, October 25). Instagram ads start appearing in feeds. Mashable. https://mashable.com/archive/instagram-ads

Constant Contact: eMail Marketing [INTERNSHIP]

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Constant contact is an online marketing company that allows you to stay connected with your customers all around the world. With the world rapidly moving their marketing towards the web, constant contact is a great way to anticipate new customers. They offer their services primarily to small businesses, membership associations, and nonprofit organizations. Constant contact is known for their dependable email marketing. Their main goal is to help their customers find new customers, drive repeat business, and generate referrals.
Email marketing is basically sending email messages with a purpose of attracting new customers, or enhancing the relationships with current customers. Email marketing through constant contact is a great reliable way for your company to grow. With features that allow you to have a professional look, constant contact’s email marketing is more effective than regular email. No technical skills are required to create a professional looking email because constant contact offers over 400 templates to choose from. Creating newsletters are simple and fast so you can send them much more frequently than paper ones.
In order to effectively get your prospectors to respond, differentiate your data base and create smaller customer lists based on their shared interests. After you’ve done that, send them relevant information that pertains to them. This will get more of a chance for them to actually act upon your emails. The emails you send are easy to forward so if you target your audience and their interested, there’s no doubt they’ll click the forward button. This will get you referrals much more easily and allow your company to grow.
A cool feature constant contact’s email marketing offers is tracking and reporting. After you send an email you are able to see who read, clicked, or forwarded your email. This allows you to understand what the people you’re trying to contact are really interested about. You can then go back and tailor your content the best possible way for your targeted audience.
Besides the email templates constant contact offers, they also offer list management and free coaching. List management is a tool that allows you to organize and grow your contact list by combing multiple lists and segmenting them based on an audience with common interests. This is a much easier way to send out a mass email because the lists are already narrowed down to a targeted audience. If you’re having trouble with email marketing through constant contact, they offer free personal coaching and support at anytime. They present webinars, guides, and podcasts to go further in detail about email marketing and how it can boost your businesses customer service.
Constant contact is the new marketing success formula that helps create and grow customer relationships in today’s socially connected world. It’s an easy reliable way for your business to keep a strong communication line. If you use constant contact’s email marketing the right way, your customers will share your emails with their networks therefore making your business grow.
Sources:
http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
http://landing.constantcontact.com/goog-grow-with-email-marketing-ad?utm_id=GOO-100846&cc=GOO-100846&gclid=CPXIgL3ZybMCFQOf4AodzQMA7A
http://www.constantcontact.com/email-marketing/what-is-email-marketing/index.jsp
http://www.constantcontact.com/about-constant-contact/index.jsp
The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

Best Ways to Market to Different Generations

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http://www.edupics.com/coloring-page-different-generations-i4588.html

Every successful business owner knows that marketing is the key to expanding a business and gaining new customers, but not all types of marketing are equally effective. Multiple marketing techniques exist; each of which are helpful for reaching different age demographics. Knowing which type of approach to use to target various generations is essential for a successful marketing campaign.
Youth
Children are easily targeted through television. Commercial advertising to young people during popular television shows can bring in sizeable revenues. The key is advertising during after school hours and on the weekends when children are most likely to be watching television. Another way of marketing to children is through strategic store displays and product placement. Noise and Bright Colors are always great ideas to catch their attention. Mobile apps are also a great way to reach children and generate familarity with a brand, Rovio’s Angry Birds is a great example of how mobile apps are reaching the youthful market.
Teenagers
When they are not in school, teenagers spend a lot of time on social networks. That means hours perusing Facebook and reading Twitter updates from friends. Every business — regardless of whether it is marketing to a teenage demographic — should have Facebook and Twitter accounts. This is an easy way to keep potential customers updated on special deals, sales and information pertaining to a particular business. Retailers, for example, can post pictures of the season’s new inventories, and Twitter is a viable way to respond directly to followers. One of the important aspects to consider is the right mix of organic marketing on the social networks with advertising models. Facebook is particularly useful remarketing specific ads to those teenagers that have already connected to your brand, product or service.
Young and Middle-Age Adults
Young and middle-age adults are one of the most profitable demographics for business owners. Marketing trends for this generation are directly connected to digital media. Online banner ads and pay per click marketing, for example, are profitable ways of reaching the millions of people who use the Internet to get their news, socialize with friends and conduct business. The introduction of remarking tools have made these even more effective as you can target audiences that already are familiar with the brand, product or service. One of the top things to consider is if remarketing is a part of the banner campaign and what that looks like compared to your standard banner campaigns.
Another increasingly popular way of marketing to young and middle-age adults is by using mobile marketing. Mobile marketing companies help business owners take advantage of the rising number of cell phone users who access the Internet using their Smartphone devices. Mobile marketing companies help serve business owners by teaching them which customers to target and how to gain the most financial return on their marketing investments. While mobile apps are great for youth, mobile SMS campaigns have also become very successful, with success rates in the high 90’s SMS is a must for targeting this generation.
Seniors and Baby Boomers
Senior citizens and baby boomers are less likely to take advantage of digital media. Traditional marketing methods are still the primary way of reaching senior citizens and baby boomers. For example, according to StateOfTheMedia.org, individuals over the age of 55 are significantly more likely to subscribe to newspapers than individuals under age 35. As of 2011, approximately half of Americans over age 55 and six in every ten Americans over age 65 read a newspaper on a daily basis. With this age range being the fastest growing user base on social sites it shouldn’t take long before they become a viable audience for other digital campaigns but for now you might find a higher rate of success with email marketing. While email is prone to low open rates, developing loyalty programs with email marketing can be extremely successful with the generational group.
Alex Nieland provides editorial on the mobile marketing industry. Mr. Nieland has written several publications relating to the latest tips, trends, and statistics within the mobile advertising sector.

Google AdWords, Part 2 [Internship]

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As you read in the Google Adwords part one, pay per click (PPC) is one of the options Google offers as an advertising feature. However, PPC is not the only feature. Cost Per Impression (CPI) is another online advertising tool that Google offers. CPI usually is in the form of a banner ad on a website and advertisers pay for every time their ad is displayed. CPI is different from PPC because CPI is only when the ad is displayed on a website, not clicked like PPC. Cost Per Mille (CPM) is the most common marketing practice used on the internet. CPM advertising is the way a marketer can be more certain about the revenue they generate from their website traffic. When the amount paid for every thousand earning impressions served, this is said to be CPM or CPI.
Some of Google Adwords advanced features include location options. In the previous Google Adwords article, it talked about setting your location to make your ads visible to a certain area. Advanced location options allow a marketer to reach people viewing pages about your targeted location. This will help because you will not only be seen in just your targeted area anymore. The only catch is that this feature is only available for certain campaign types that have “all features”. The good news is that you can switch your campaign type whenever you like.
Google had recently been trying out a new feature called Google Email Subscription Ads. This allows companies to buy ads that automatically fill in a newsletter slot. This allows users to sign up more easily for email subscriptions or other free newsletters. A cool feature on this allows your Google email address to be displayed next to your ad.
A new revolutionizing feature that Google Adwords set up is calling Pay Per Call (PPC). Pay Per Call is simply the process of an advertiser paying the publisher every time their phone number is clicked off a Google search page. This is another good way a marketer can establish their advertisements and see how their PPC option really works.
Google offers many different features for businesses to choose from. Google Adwords is a great beneficial step for your business to take. The set up is easy, and Google is kind enough to show you a step by step process. Even though Google is testing out some features, it’s easy to see that they are thriving and will go into good use.
Read: Google AdWords Part 1
Sources:
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/advertising-internet-advertising/2646-1.html#axzz29NUBY4iJ
http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1722038
http://www.crunchbase.com/product/google-adwords-2
http://paypercallexchange.com/mobile-marketing/google-mobile-adwords/
 
The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

Seth Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” [Internship]

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                Seth Godin made a valuable point when stating, “Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization.” Godin has made several other valuable points in his book, “All Marketers Tell Stories”. He focuses on a person’s “worldview” which is someone’s own rules, values, beliefs, and biases. Even though it is very tough to change someone’s worldview, it is possible with the correct kind of marketing.
                Worldviews are both beneficial yet tricky at the same time. Worldviews are the reason why our world is a diverse place. However, it is hard for a marketer to target so many people with different points of views. According to Godin, “Worldviews are the reason that two intelligent people can look at the same data and walk away with completely different conclusions.” Marketers have found a way “around” worldviews that allow them to still market their products or services. Marketers tell stories. “Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story. People can’t handle the truth.” Seth Godin was one hundred percent right when he wrote this in his book. People cannot handle the truth, and they will do anything to go around it. In order for a marketer to truly succeed, which doesn’t happen often according to Godin, there are five steps that they need to follow.
                The first step in Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” is “their worldview and frames got there before you did.” He explains that the world is full of all kinds of different people with different worldviews. If everyone was the same, marketing would be a piece of cake. However, that’s not the case. Marketers need to make their advertisements accustom to everyone and their different values, biases, and assumptions. Frames are also part of the big picture. They are elements of a story painted to leverage the worldview a consumer already has. If a marketer frames their story in terms of a person’s worldview, they will be heard and noticed.
                The second step Godin points out is “people notice only the new and then make a guess”.  He makes a great comparison to ideas and viruses. Viruses can spread through a community by jumping host to host. Scientists study how a host interacts with the virus. The same thing goes for an idea; ideas can spread through a community person to person. Instead of seeing how a host and virus interact, we try to understand how our brain responds to the ideas and inputs we encounter.
                The third step is “first impressions start the story”. People make judgments within a fraction of a second. A marketer needs to grab the attention of their audience as soon as they start telling the story or else they will lose the persons attention. A marketer should always start with something exciting and interesting, not boring. First impressions are always key.
                Godin’s fourth step in his book is “great marketers tell stories we believe.” First, you have to believe in your story, or else you will not come off believable. Sounding confident and knowing what you’re talking about will draw in a bigger audience. The story sells the product and pleases the customer.
                Finally, the last step is “marketers with authenticity thrive.” Godin said, “If you commit to a story and live that story, the contradictions will disappear.” No one likes a phony person because then no one will take their time to listen to your advertisement, or even buy your product or service. When a marketer is authentic, it shows, and people will stop and listen. People like hearing stories when it involves a shortcut, money, safety, fun, and belonging. These are all factors of their worldviews, and Godin said persuading someone to switch their worldview is the same as making him admit he was wrong. People hate admitting that they are wrong, and therefore will not listen to your story.  
                In the end, it doesn’t matter whether something is actually better or more efficient, what matters is what the consumer believes. As a marketer, it would be impossible to be noticed without studying your audience’s various worldviews. Products and services have gotten more and more complex, so there is a lot of teaching for marketers to do. Seth Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” is a step in the right direction when you want to succeed as a marketer.
Sources:
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591841003/permissionmarket
http://digitalethos.org/a-day-at-google-new-york-opinion/
 
The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

10 Ways to Use Foursquare for Business

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Foursquare is a location-based smartphone application which offers check-in service to customers, marketers and businesses alike. You can use this mobile application to check-in to venues and share with your friends where you are, and obtain info about those places.  Based on your updates, the application might assign you merit badges. It’s an interesting social concept for consumers and at the same time, a strong business tool that can be potentially used for creating brand awareness and profits. Hence if you want to leverage your business, this platform platform is worth looking at for several reasons. To do this, you’ll have to understand how it works. There are 10 ways to use Foursquare for business. To help you get an idea about promoting your own business through this platform, there are a few tips discussed below.
How to use foursquare for business
To begin with, check your business on Foursquare. If your business is not there, add it and then, claim it on the listing. Connect your Twitter account with the listing. This process is quite simple. Once this is done, you can proceed further to use Foursquare for business promotion. In this endeavor, following things can be done:

  1. Create interesting deals to draw in customers. Deals can easily be created if you have claimed your business on this platform. You can give special discounts to those users who checks in to your business, for instance – announce to give 10% off on one’s next merchandise shopping. However, just ensure that your deals are special and creative so that new customers get attracted and keep coming back to you.
  2. Design reward-based programs on Foursquare for loyal customers to retain them. If deals help you draw new customers, rewarding those who are regular visitors to your business is useful in winning their loyalty. It can create a bond between your customers and the business and entice them to come back to you. Your reward-based programs should be smart and intelligently devised, for instance – a program asking one to check in 5 times in 15 days and win a surprise gift.
  3. Use Foursquare to collect demographic details of your customers. Through this platform, you can know the average check-in rate of a customer, his/ her age and gender, check-in timings and where he or she is sharing the check-in details – on Facebook or Twitter.
  4. Another interesting way to use Foursquare for business promotion is to get feedback from your customers about your business. Customers can leave their comments or tips about a particular venue they visit. You can use their feedback to bring improvisation in your business.
  5. Foursquare is a powerful medium to advertize your business for free. When you claim your business and optimize the listing by adding authentic contact details and website, you increase the chances of promoting your business across various social networking sites which are used by millions.
  6. If your business doesn’t have a physical presence, you can use Foursquare to set up a page instead of claiming a venue. Foursquare page is not much different from a Twitter page. Those who follow your business on Foursquare can obtain information about you from there.
  7. You can enter a partnership with other brands which are physically present to derive optimum benefit. For instance if you are a book publisher, join hands with a local bookstore to increase the reach of your business.
  8. Design Foursquare event at your venue to boost massive check-ins and brand consciousness.
  9. You can encourage your staff to join Foursquare and check-in at your venue there whenever they report to work. This will also help spread awareness about your business among their friends and followers.
  10. You can also share useful tips on Foursquare to engage with your customers and thereby, attract their attention to your business.

These are few ways to use Foursquare for business. You can use these and other innovative techniques as well to make success out of your business.
Edoardo Piccolotto, is an Internet Marketing and Strategic Consultant that provides specific strategy advices to business that want to use internet to generate new business opportunities. Follow him on twitter @epiccolotto.

3 Tips to Effectively Market Your Real Estate Website

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The key to marketing a real estate website is in knowing what your prospects are searching for, what sites they frequent, and how they use the web to communicate and gather information. Consider the following 3 tips to effectively market your real estate website:

Proper Domain Selection

The first step is choosing a domain name that will either capitalize on your brand name or target web searchers based on keywords. If you already have an established brand that is locally recognized you’ll want to make it easier for existing clients and prospects to find your site by registering a domain name that contains the name of your agency.
On the other hand, if you’re able to get your hands on a rare, yet highly valuable geo-targeted domain name (i.e. – FloridaRealEstate.com) then this option should be considered over all. Some firms choose to register multiple domains in order to maximise search traffic.

Competitive Analysis and Keyword Optimization

A great way to figure out what keywords you should be targeting in your site content and marketing efforts is to utilize keyword research tools and services like:

  • Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool
  • Keyword Discovery
  • Wordtracker
  • Spyfu
  • Compete.com Analytics

All of the above resources will help you determine which keywords your competitors are using to generate the most traffic. Once you’ve built a list of keywords you can focus on outdoing the competition by publishing more content and contributing genuinely useful information. In addition to filling your real estate website with quality content, you should also start focusing on becoming a thought leader in your industry by spreading your outreach around the web through…

Blogging and Networking

Investors, property buyers, and other agents use the web to build their contacts and educate themselves on a regular basis. Research the leading real estate blogs and attempt to establish your own authoritative presence by becoming a reputable guest author.
As a real estate professional you’ve probably heard the phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know that matters.”  With the ability to quickly contact ideal buyers and accommodate the needs of a large network of sellers you can maximise your yearly commissions by increasing the volume of transactions you facilitate.
Start by joining Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn the ins and outs of social networking, and consider the advantages of outsourcing the management of your campaigns to professionals that can optimize your output.
Joseph Tollett is a real estate professional and experienced blogger who currently conducts research for IronMonk Solutions, a well-known SEO firm with headquarters in New York. Click here to read their blog.
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What Type of Marketing Job is Right for Me?

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You want to get into marketing, but aren’t sure where to start. Maybe you’ve just graduated or are looking around for an internship, but are having trouble narrowing down your options. The fact of the matter is that marketing is a vast industry, and it has many different types of careers to offer in numerous fields. The key is finding the one best suited to your particular strengths and passions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41605671@N08/4090395947/

The marketing sector can be broadly divided into five primary fields or branches. They are all interrelated and interdependent, but each is unique and all involve very different job descriptions. You can choose from careers in advertising, media, brand management, market research, and PR. Here’s what each has to offer:

Advertising

If you’ve ever seen an episode of HBO’s Mad Men, you probably have a general idea of what this work involves. Of course, it’s not nearly so glamorous or dramatic as that, but a career in advertising means becoming an expert in rhetoric, persuasion, and psychology. You’ll need to have a sharp aesthetic sense, be well versed in typography and design, and, most importantly, be able to create concise appealing images and expressions that will sell products.

Media

Technically, media falls under the blanket of advertising, but it deserves it’s own space because of the specialization it involves. While advertising, as characterized above, refers to the generation of concepts and strategies, media refers to the communication of those ideas. These jobs demand technical skill and involve getting the ad concepts circulating at maximum exposure on the Internet, television, in print, on billboards, and wherever else they will be most effective.

Brand Management

Brand Management accounts for a large part of marketing. It is also a largely conceptual field that requires an intimate understanding of a specific company and the products it sells. Brand managers must find ways to capture the essence of a company or product and translate it into a concise image, name, and marketing strategy––all while anticipating public reactions, carving out a niche market, and combating competitors.

Market Research

To sell a product, one must first understand the people it is being sold to. Market researchers conduct polls, organize focus groups, analyze statistics, recognize and anticipate consumer trends, and gain insights into the habits and psychology of the buyer.

Public Relations (PR)

Public relations jobs require strong social skills and fast-talking. PR departments are intermediaries between the media, consumers, employees, investors, and the public. They write press releases, appease angry parties, promote products, keep investors informed, and deal with journalists.
As long as products are being sold, there will be a demand for people who can market them. This is why there are so many employment opportunities in the marketing sector, and usually a strong degree of job security. Slumps in the economy rarely put marketing firms out of business. Rather, they make companies who are desperate to sell their products even more reliant on advertising and creative marketing. Hopefully this guide has helped you narrow down your options. Best of luck in finding the type of career you’ll pursue in your job hunt!
Thanks to Agency Central for contributing this guide. If you fancy your hand in any of these roles, you can find wide range of marketing recruitment agencies at AgencyCentral.co.uk.

What is Inbound Marketing? [Internship]

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            Inbound marketing is a way of making yourself or your company easy to find and drawing people to your website by producing content that appeals to your visitors. The term “inbound marketing” was coined in 2005 by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan because he believed that traditional marketing was becoming less effective. Inbound marketing includes content like blogs, enewsletters, and the social media network. Inbound marketing is far more favored by businesses than outbound marketing. Outbound marketing includes content such as spam, telemarketing, and fliers.
            The whole concept of inbound marketing is to get the customers to find you, instead of you reaching out to them. It can be broken down into five stages. One, attract traffic; two, convert visitors to leads; three, convert leads to sales; four, turn customers into repeat higher margin customers; and five, analyze for continuous improvement. A company can attract traffic to their website by blogging, for example. Updating your blog more frequently will attract more visitors to your website and revenue traffic. Announce your website via email, and across the social media networks like Google+ and Twitter to garnish social and search traffic. Email everyone you know about your new website, lead with content and the word will travel. Share it on your social media websites. Include keywords that will draw your targeted audience in. Then, you want to make sure that the material on your page is what the visitor is looking for. Your goal is to make the visitor a customer. After your visitor becomes a customer, make sure they will come back by sending them an enewsletter and keep your page updated with things that will attract them to buy again. After you went through the four steps of the process, you want to analyze everything that you have done and make sure you are doing everything you can to satisfy your visitors, followers, customers.
            In order to make inbound marketing completely effective, you want to give your customers your marketing information, and a little something else. This provides a value above and beyond what they are looking for, which creates a value to the customer experience. For example, if you’re a gardening or landscaping company, write a little side story about your home garden and how you personally take care of it in the newsletter. The three key phases are “get found, convert, and analyze”.
            Inbound marketing can be effective if the communication is interactive and two-way, unlike outbound marketing which is one-way. One way to create inbound marketing is by being found on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, etc. This is a type of inbound content because someone who is looking for something specifically related to you will go directly to your page. By creating valuable content on your website, your website will rise in organic search results. By rising in organic search results, it will benefit you tremendously because the closer you are to the search engines first page, the more visibility you are gaining for your website.
You can try and get your website higher in the organic search result by pay per click (PPC). PPC is an advertising model used to direct traffic to a certain website. Every time someone’s ad is clicked, the advertiser pays the website owner or publisher. Another way to rank higher in organic search results is to make a well put together press release that is filled with information that your targeted audience will click on when they search on a search engine. Don’t use keywords that are commonly used by your competition; be more creative when it comes to keywords.
            A recently new field that inbound marketing has found its way to is the social media network. Social media sites are the most visited websites on the web. When marketing on social media, identify your target audience. Once you have a targeted audience, think about keywords this audience might use to search to find sites like yours. Facebook for example, has seen a steady increase in its search bar for businesses. A basic principle of a social media site is like using a forum, if there is no activity going on you will leave. To make sure that this doesn’t happen to you on your website, fill it with lots of information and useful content. Finally, another way to use the social media network for inbound marketing is to give your “community” something to talk about. For example, if you own a fitness company and you are now selling a new workout machine, tell your social medic community. This is the “network effect”, when your community creates a “buzz” about what you were talking about, it will bring in other users.
            An easy way to get information out about your business or product is to advertise where they are already going. For example, by putting “like us on Facebook” on your company’s website, this will draw people to your Facebook page where you can advertise all about your business, products and services. Another way to generate inbound marketing is to host contests. By letting your visitors and or customers take an online survey about their experience with your website, offer a chance to win a prize if they take the survey. Also give them the opportunity to go through an easy-to-do sign up for newsletters offering them coupons and sneak peeks into the future.
            Inbound marketing is far more effective than outbound marketing. You can prove this just by asking if you have deleted spam mail without reading it. Spam mail is an example of outbound marketing. Since social media is huge growing field, there should be no question as to why inbound marketing is so effective. In the end, it’s all about finding a new way to generate interest, and inbound marketing is the new way to generate interest and visitors, followers, customers.  
Sources:

The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

What Digital & Social Media Marketers Can Learn from Business Consultants [Opinion]

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In the last five years I have heard some wild claims about who makes the best marketer – those claims have ranged from PR professionals, who ‘should be the only people to do it’, to Social Media, to ‘it takes a Sales Professional to provide the best internet marketing.’

I’d like you to think of Digital Assets in the form of a building:

  • The windows are Social Media – transparency of course
  • The walls are the advertising efforts – the place to display and show
  • The doors are the PR – as media attention helps get people to walk through the door
  • The shelves, displays and racks are the event planners – presentation and onsite execution
  • The Roof is the website – it covers everything else

However, the missing element is the foundation or the business itself. The digital and social media industry has gotten a lot of bad heat on not being effective and I would argue that has happened because the keystone has been missing, the Business Consultant.

I warn almost everyone that I interact with to look for the red flags when meeting a PR, Web, SEO, Social Media, Event Professional, etc. The best way to know if that have any clue what they are talking about will come with the first interaction. Do they start talking to you about their business and products, or do they ask you about yours?

The world is filled with overnight talent and businesses that offer these services and I say talent because most are very good at their niche, unfortunately it seems to end there. Think of it like a great marksman sent off to war to be a sniper without any military training. The ability to hit a target does not translate to being an effect solider, especially in terms of the bigger picture.

The transformed business consultants that are working as project managers and on the rare occasion can provide Web Development, SEO, Social Media and more are carrying with them the greatest lesson the marketing industry can learn, success goes beyond the view, comment and call!

Traditional marketing and advertising was all about visibility and the connection point, the advertising was a success when the consumer connected with your name, product or service.( i.e. someone visited the website, opened the email, opened the text message or called your phone, that is marketing success in the traditional context). The ability to convert that experience into a sale was the business owners problem. This is the reason businesses fail continuously and why corporate leadership is completely in the dark with the digital environment.

How Can We do Better or Demand Better?

Take the Business Consultant approach, inquire about the business model, the products or services, why the target market is the target market. Take the campaign backwards, go from the conversion or sale to the campaigns and tools to reach consumers. Build the model on the business and remember the best in any industry become the best from exploring. Sometimes it’s easier to create new then fix broken.

Why “NO” is so important to the Profession of Digital & Social Media Marketing [Opinion]

The overnight rush of Web developers lead to overnight SEO providers and then the flood of Social Media Marketers. Which in turn lead to every PR, advertising and marketing agency claiming to offer services they knew nothing about to save their revenue streams. The industry changed so fast that quantity quickly overtook quality.

“NO” is crucial to not just the digital and social industry but the recovery of our economy! I was sitting in a session at BlogWorld, it was about monetization, each of the three presenters had the same story the “advertisers found us” and “I spent nothing on advertising”.

I had to go to the mic, this is such a common carless comment that I had an ethical obligation to set straight.

The question: “You said that advertisers found you and that you spent nothing on advertising, but I want you to think of what the cost was… you might not have purchased advertising but clearly you spent time and money to build your…”

All three faces quickly had a look that you couldn’t quite place, perhaps it was horror? Then Lou Mongello of Walt Disney World Radio jumped to answer, “Oh it was so expensive, it cost me time, I had to sell my house and I spent money on all sorts of things”.

Lou Mongello then went on to explain that part of his success came from having his families support and the understanding of sacrifice to accomplish the long term goal.

Don’t Go In Unprepared

Here is the crucial point of this article, because so many enter into digital and social media services unprepared with misrepresentation of their own business model, they are ill equipped to help their clients with the same problem. In the need to create profits they become like AOL, they leap into every adventure without any thought of their clients business model or worse their own long term business model.

Learning to say “NO” allows you to take on clients that will be successful with your talent or service, it garnishes long term revenue for your business and a reputation for growth. It’s not easy being picky in the beginning, or when times are tough, but it is successful! Even more importantly, it keeps others from wasting their life savings on an idea or business that they are underfunded, underequipped or worse ignorant about from losing their time and money. It also prevents the overwhelming false, false from becoming the digital and social media industry. The Social Media Marketer did not intentionally fail you, the web developer did not build a crappy website or fail to generate valuable SEO, the business was flawed and directed to fail from the beginning and the digital and social industry should not take the blame for that.

Pick your clients carefully, for the benefit of them, yourself and our industry.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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