One Year Aniversary

Hi all

As of today, I have been writing this blog for a whole year!

I want to thank you all for supporting me on this journey and I hope you will continue to do so.

I feel like I have learned a lot but there are still leagues to go so I can promise there will be more to come

 

 

Google AdWords

Hi everyone

Google AdWords is advertising app for businesses. It is one of  the most widely used and effective ways of  advertising on a worldwide platform. Google Adwords helps businesses to grow their reach by becoming more visible to potential customers.  In this article; I will provide a brief explanation of how the app works, some of the benefits of using Google Adwords and a couple of top tips to remember.

How to use 

You can use AdWords to create ads that target users across two main networks; search networks and display networks. The search network refers to Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC ads) in which advertisers bid on keywords that are relevant to their business and have a chance to show their adverts to users who enter those keywords. For example, a florist might bid on words such as bouquet, roses or arrangements. So that when someone types these words in Google there website appears.

The display network offers advertisers the option of placing a visual banner-style advertisement on websites that are part of the Google display network. For example, a bar that is hosting an open mic night might place a banner ad on music site that Google has access to.

Benefits 

When people want to find something online they tend to either visit a site they know provides that product or they type what they are looking for into a search engine. Which is why businesses should be using Google AdWords because it can be beneficial on two fronts. either by allowing business to place ads on other sites where shoppers might frequent or by buying up keywords related to your business so that you appear in the search results.

Top tips 

When using Google AdWords there are some simple tips that you can use to improve the quality your business ads and therefore their success:

• Understand searchers intent – when choosing what words to bid on Marketers need to consider what words potentially customers might type into Google. This will give them a better chance at appearing in searches that are relevant to customers.
• Appropriate language – it’s always a good idea to set ads to all languages so that you can reach all potential markets and so the ads do limit your customer basis.
• Structure is everything – This point applies strictly to Display network Ads. when creating these types of Visual ads it’s important to consider the location of the ads itself as well the appropriate page to place them on.
• Specific Ad groups – Marketers should choose specific groups of people to target for each ad then fit their advertisements around them accordingly. With search network ads it’s a question of what different types of customers might type into search engines and with Banner ads, it’s more what visual will appeal to different customers.
• Beware of broad terms – This last tip applies to search network ads. Buying broad terms runs the risk of your business showing up in un-relevant searches. So the more specific you can be better.

 

In Conclusion, I hope this brief explanation helps you to understand how Google AdWords can improve people’s ability to discover your website and thereby increase your business reach and customer base. All this app is a must-have marketing tool.

 

Sources: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-adwords-ppc#sm.0011g4yaylbjfi710141y2xoi0lnx

http://www.wordstream.com/how-to-use-google-adwords

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242028

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/9-adwords-tips-get-perfect-roi-smile

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-adwords-features-didnt-know-existed#sm.0011g4yaylbjfi710141y2xoi0lnx

Analytics Essentials

Hi all

Google Analytics is a free app that tells you who your audience is and what their needs are. The app connects to every page and tab on your social media sites and provides massive amounts of useable measured data. Analytics can tell you the methods people use to reach your site, the content they viewed, the device they used, whether they purchased your products and so much more.

In this article, I won’t be going to much into how to use the app more on the benefits of using Analytics. I will focus on three main aspects; general features that the site offers, the reports that analytics create and what they tell you about your followers and finally how they measure their data and how you can interpret the results.

General features 

The main advantage of Google Analytics is fairly clear in that it allows you to track the success of your social media sites but its the way that Analytics does this that really gives google an edge. Analytics allows you to set goals to help you track how well your site is meeting your objectives. goals are completed activity that helps to build your business such as some signing up for your newsletter or clicking on a call to action button. By adding goals to Analytics you can choose what site behaviour is important to you and your business then Google will track it for you. This then provides you with a way to measure what you call success.

This is the main way in which you can personalise the data analytics offers you but by no means the only one. You can also add filters to what google measures such as excluding your own site visits or site visits a particular time or from a particular country. Now while on the surface this may not seem a great benefit it could be useful if you want to use Analytics for a very specific reason. Another benefit is that Google allows you can track specific posts which could be useful if you wanted to monitor a particular ad campaign or certain posts that are related to one another. Finally, Gooogle takes all the data it collects and distills it into a number of separate reports which you can have emailed to you direct. This way you are always up to date with the information that Google is collecting for you.

Personal touches in business that matter and Google Analytics makes sure you can personalise your account as much as you would like. So that way you are getting the information that matters most to your business and tracking its progress.

Reports 

Google Analytics takes all the data about your site such as who your is audience, how they behaviour on your site, how they find your site and so on then distills this information into summarised reports. Each report can be used to tell you something different about your site such as what kind of audience you should be targeting, which of your marketing efforts are most successful and what content on your site is most popular.

These reports provide you with the chance to study your site’s progress in depth. They make specific knowledge easy to find, can highlight issues that need to be addressed and can help to refine your marketing efforts without having to collect the data yourself. Another benefit is the large number of reports that they offer. It is quite literally a wealth of data right at your fingers tips. The reports also give you the data in different formats so you can choose the measurement that suits you and your needs.

Measurement 

Each report that Analytics creates comes in graph and statistic table form. The Graph reflects the report for example in the audience and demographics report it shows a pie chart to display what percentage of your views are male or female and a standard bar chart to show the age range of your audience. Whereas in the behaviour report, there is a line graph showing the number of page views.  The Statistical table is a more detailed look at all the dimensions involved in each metric such as the number of pages viewed, sessions, bounce rate, New users and so on. The dimensions are a further breakdown of the measurements Google provides which only gives you deeper access to your pages stats.

These dimensions can be further narrow these down to create special reports that show you specific data that is relevant to you. For example, if you wanted to see how much of your site traffic comes from foreign countries you could use the dimensions table to exclude any site visits from your own country.  Therefore, you could view how many of your site visits are foreign. This information might be helpful if you were considering offering the option to translate your site into a different language to make it more user-friendly. This is just one way you could personalise the reports that google offers you to get the metrics important to you. Another way of personalising the results is you can also compare two or more dimensions or separate your data into segments which allows you isolate specific data to create smaller more specific reports that focus on just the data you want. You can even add annotation to your graph reports. So if you start a new ad campaign and want to track data specific to that campaign you could add an annotation to your graph report to log the date your campaign started.

All of these methods and more are just  some of the ways that Google created to allow you to sort through all the masses of data they collect and store to find information that can really help you make better and more effective changes to your business so that it can better meet your customer’s needs.

I hope this brief overview has given you a better idea as to why this simple to install, free app is an amazing tool for all business owners and social network users. Remember if you don’t understand any of the terms used in this post see my jargon buster (my previous blog article). Thanks for reading.

 

Sources:

Essential Google Analytics Resources for Marketers: A Complete Guide

How to Measure Social Media Using Google Analytics Reports

The 8 Most Important Google Analytics Reports For Social Media Management

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/04/customers-content-crave/

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/03/measure-engagement-right/

Training video from Lydia which I can not display because only members have access to their content

Building your Brand with Social Media

Hey all

So today I’m here to talk about building your brand with Social media. I’m still learning on this subject so I’m just going to write what I have so far and I will update it as I go:

• Your Brand is the one thing that identifies your business and its products such as a name, term, design or feature
• Brand equality is the reliability and consistent transaction that happen between the customer and the business which builds loyalty and positive word of mouth which is a relationship
• Social media gives a worldwide connection to customers. its a way to communicate with the masses and build both your brand and brand equality
• As I’ve discussed before Social media is a tool to better connect with your customer which can only help you to build the loyalty and positive word of mouth that is needed for brand equity.
• this equity can lead to greater brand awareness which is where more people have knowledge of your company and its reputation which then expands your customer base.
• Then you can use social media to reach out to these new customers create a better relationship with them which cause your brand to grow.

This cycle is just one of the ways that social media can be used to help build your brand. Another way is to create detailed profiles so that your customers know you and your company or using the Hashtag search tool to find people with similar or relevant interests and reaching out to them. Social media is all about being connected and in business, those connections are so important. So as I hope I’ve briefly explained Social media can help businesses to build their brand.

Here are my sources in case you want to check them out:

How to Plan a Rockstar B2B Social Media Marketing Plan

 

Picking Platforms

Hey Guys

Now I’ve done a little basic research on all of the major platforms my next step is to look at the all and work out which few suit my social media needs Aka the ones I’m going to be research further.

So the best way I know too that is to sum up all my research and create a mini conclusion for each platform which I can use to pick my Platforms.

• So first up Facebook:  So from all my research I’ve done on Facebook I’ve picked that its a platform that helps to build better relationships between your business and your customers. The idea of Facebook is that we like what we like so customers will like a business they already know and have a good relationship with. Then the business can use the page to provide useful content for that customer which the customer then interacts with forming a better relationship between them.

E.g a customer likes their local bakery’s Facebook page. That bakery uses the page to regularly post simple recipes for the customers to try at home. The customers regularly likes these posts then on one post the customers comments that they are struggling to make a cake from their friends birthday party. So the Business gets back to that customer by saying hey have you try this recipe and here is a video with step by step instruction of me making said cake let me know how it goes. This builds a strong relationship between said business and customer.

So Facebook in my Conclusion is for interacting with your current customer basis to build stronger relationships.

• So Next up is Twitter: My research here has taught me that unlike most social media sites who can gain new customers from the process of accidental marketing (you see your friend has liked a certain business page so you like it too) Twitter works a something the call the domino effect (your post gets re-tweeted which gets re-tweet potential again and again possibly reaching hundreds of people who wouldn’t know about your page otherwise). This domino effect is much more likely to generate new people who follow your page and, therefore, your business all because they find the re-Tweeted content valuable.

So my Conclusion for Twitter that your business can have a much higher reach drawing in new potential customers so it could be argued that Twitter is a tool to create business awareness allowing your business to grow more customers.

• Now for Linked-in, a is a business page for business people that are there advertising business, looking for businesses and working with businesses. So it’s simpler to sell yourself, your business and its products because that’s what it’s therefore. People use Linked-in to connect with businesses that are relevant to them whereas on Facebook or Twitter they might not be using the site for that purpose. if you only use Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch with your family and friends for example and don’t like pages for that reason then a businesses Facebook or Twitter page won’t be interesting to that customer. However if that person is on Linked-In and using it to connect with a business that having your company on Linked-in can be Valuable.

So my Conclusion here is that Linked-in is a worthwhile business site that can allow you to sell your business to the new and current customer on a social platform where they are looking to connect with businesses.

• Next up Google+:  The obvious yet important thing that my research has taught me here is that Google+ is Google. simply meaning if your business is on Google+ then Google knows more about your business and that makes it easier to search for. if Google can see all the recommendations that customers are leaving about your business, the content that you are writing about your business and the data you’ve entered on Google+ about your business then they know all about your business. All this allows Google to provide relevant results to potential and current customers searching for your Business.

for example, if a customer is looking for a plumber through Google search Google is more likely to put a plumber business that they know has good reviews from customers, post regularly on Google+ about basic house repair and has all their business information on Google+ to the top of a search list over Plumber business that it doesn’t know. It’s a similar principal to asking a friend for advice on which plumber to use. The friend won’t pick a random plumber out of the yellow pages and say here use this one. They are more likely to recommend a business they know and trust. The Same is true of Google.

So my Conclusion here is since Google is the most commonly used search engine putting your business on Google+ can only improve your customers chances of finding you online. So Google+ can be considered vital to any business looking to set up an online presence.

• and Last but not least YouTube: My research has taught that YouTube is the second biggest search engine Meaning people aren’t just using it to listen to music but also to learn. Business can use this to their advantage by providing video content that’s valuable to customers and using that to sell their business. for example, a Local florist creates videos on how to care for certain household plants with her business information such as her website, business address, phone number soon at the end of the video. People who search on YouTube about how to care for their plants then watch the video and learn about the business therefore potentially increasing their customer base and reaching out to the current customer with helpful information.

So my Conclusion about YouTube is if you can create valuable content then it can be a useful business tool however it is all about the content; people are unlike to search for what your business does or sells on YouTube that sort of information will get more success on other sites. YouTube is a tool for learning so unless you can teach your customers useful content through your video’s you are unlike to get many views and even fewer interactions.

I hope you found all that useful I sure did. Please try to remember these are my own personal conclusions, not facts but based on this conclusion I’m choosing to study; Facebook, Twitter and Google+ more. I believe these three sites are the ones that I will need to know in depth if I hope to get a Job working in social Media. I will still be posting about other social media topics but these three will be my main focus.

Using YouTube

Hey all

As regular readers will know I’m currently exploring some of the different platforms of Social media, So I’ve had a little look at Twitter, Linked-in, Google+ and Finally were on to YouTube.

So I’ve good two sources this time:

So as usual I’m going to just dive in it:

• YouTube is essential a search engine people don’t go there just for funny Cat Video’s, they also use it as a learning tool as I’m doing now
• YouTube is not the place to sell your products its all about making useful content that is Valuable to your customers.
• you can use video’s to drive potential customers to your website and business.
• be sure to use key search words in your video title to attract people such as ‘how to’ or ‘top ten’
• people watch your video’s and then if they find the content useful then you are already forming a positive relationship with them meaning they are more likely to watch other video’s, subscribe to your channel and visit your business website.
• it can be a good tool to engage with current or potential customers by answering important questions about your business
• a significant number of people now research items before purchasing so its well worth having an accessible online presence that encourages people to buy your products and have faith in your business.
• Top 3 rules for all You tube business you tube users 1. entertain your audience 2. educate the audience and 3. inspire your audience
• you can add annotations such as your website in text boxes over your video
• use the description boxes to your advantages there are probably tons of video’s to chose from so being clear about what your video’s contains is really important.

So this is the end of my preliminary investigation into the many social platforms. so now I’m going to review my notes and decide which platforms I wish to study more in the hopes becoming fluent in them. So stay tuned for more news

Delving into Google+

Hey all

As regular readers will know I’m currently exploring some of the different platforms of Social media, So I’ve had a little look at Twitter and Linked in next up is Google+.

I don’t think this is the best source but it’s a good starting point so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPVlFeshZ34

and here is what I learned:

• 80% of online searching is done on google so Google+ is very relevant to your online presence
• Google+ is Google so when people search through Google it makes your business easier to find.
• Inside Google+ there are communities which are the same as groups. These can be used to connect with people with similar interests which can help to boost to business.
• there are brands on Google+ such as Cadburys that you can communicate with you and visa versa
• Google+ uses Circles instead of likes or followers. so you can share content with your circle. you can also divide your circle such as new customers, old customers and so on which you can use to target your shared content.
• Google authorship is where you connect your Google+ account to content you have written else where such as connecting your blog posts or your You Tube vids to your Google+
• So Google+ can use your circle to personalise your search results by using data in Google+ to provide relevant results.
• Google+ has a stream which is similar to twitter’s feed it’s not based on the contents reach it’s more a chronological list of your posts.
• Google+ insights allow you to see who is liking you content such as Gender, age and so. This allows you to better get to know your customers
• Google+ has something called Google hangouts which are basically their version of Skype. Where you can connect with several customers face to face. you can even broadcast it to youtube
• if you’re not on Google+ then Google doesn’t know you and then is less likely to know about your business and its reputation so it makes it much harder for your customers to find you on Google+
• the bell Symbol on Google+ is the option to be notified when people post. This could be good for competitor research since if your getting notified each time they post then you can keep up with their post and learn from it.
• customers can leave reviews with stars and comments which you can interact with improving your customers service.

So that’s all my Google+ Knowledge but there is more platform exploration to come so stay tuned for You Tube.