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May 19, 2012

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Building your internet marketing strategy

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you are looking to build or expand upon your existing internet-based marketing strategies then it can be
very difficult to work out where you should begin. There are lots of people who are currently finding
themselves in exactly the same position and you first task should be to think about what area you will
focus on so that you can grow your business on line.

Achieving results without spending the money
You might be tempted to save yourself some time by buying into services that promise you instant
success and top ratings but realistically you will more than likely find yourself disappointed by the
results and a little out of pocket too. It is still possible for you to get the results you were looking for,
however, but it will just take a little patience and perseverance.

Helpful hints to help you get started
There are lots of people around that are very eager to offer you advice and tell you how you can
dramatically affect the success of your business, but in actual fact you can do this yourself just by
finding out how online marketing works and following some simple tips.

Keep your ads simple
If you are placing an ad try to keep it simple. Look through the formats you have already put together
and pick one that is basic. Once you have created your ads, run different ones to assess their effectiveness.
You can then decide which one work the best and use them.

Delegate tasks you don’t have time for
Outsource some of your responsibilities so you have more time free. There are some straight forward
tasks that you could do without doing but trust someone else to take care of. Use websites that can help
you outsource your workload and free some of your time up.

Encourage internal links
If you want to increase the flow of traffic to your site you will need to have lots of other sites linking to
you. You should look to build on this more than you should be looking to build your links to other sites.

Go through your email list
If you have an email list then contact people and test whether they are using your links. If they are not
visiting your site after you have emailed them then ask yourself whether you need them on your email
list at all and think about working on building a list that is more responsive to your emails.

Understand the niche you are working in
It is so crucial that you understand the niche you are operating in so that you can also understand your
target audience. Read what other sites have to say and try to pick up as much as you can. If you can
work out what your competitors are doing right then you can emulate their success by mirroring their
actions to generate the same volumes of traffic.

Internet Marketing Packages

Track the success of your social media activity
You can track how much traffic you generate through your social media activity so that you can test
how many people visit your site every time you tweet about it. You can find tools to help you do this
online.

Set aside a working budget
Your marketing strategy will of course incur some cost so make sure you budget for this by setting
funds aside to cover your advertising. Work out what it will cost you for affiliate selling and marketing
too.

Be productive with the time that you set aside to work on your marketing strategy. If you can set
yourself realistic goals and commit to a certain amount of time each day or each week then it is more
likely that you will achieve something with this time. Consistency

 

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With: ,

Using SEO for local businesses

March 16, 2012 By 1 Comment

Local search engine optimisation has meant that people are now able to look for exactly what they need
online without having to look up listings in phone directories or in newspapers. If a business operates
within a particular locale then they can optimise their content so that they can be found by people from
the same region. The conversion rate for people who have found a business online that matches the
criteria they are looking for and subsequently make a purchase is very high indeed. For you to be listed
you must make sure all of your details are correct so that you can appear in relevant regional directories.

Improving your content to rank higher in search results
If you want to ensure that you are at the top of the pile your business will need to be placed on the
databases of all business directories. You should make sure that you are optimised to be listed by Google
according to your region. You can improve your content with images and video clips which will all help
you rank higher.

Outsourcing some of the SEO work
You can outsource the responsibility of describing what your business is about so that it can be submitted
all the relevant business directories. You can also outsource the management of your customer reviews.
If you do decide to outsource some of this work you can also have your site frequently checked for
optimisation and you can be sure that the reputation of your business, as well as its ranking, remains
high. This will free your time up so that you can then carry on with the day to day management of your
business.

How SEO works
To get the most out of search engine optimisation you will need to know how it works and how you should
use it. This will help you keep your website high in the search listings so that your business can continue to
grow. There are lots of different factors involved in how well your site will do in a search and keywords and
phrases forms only part of this process. Your headings and subheadings must also include related terms
and the amount of traffic you currently get will confirm the credibility of your site so that Google or
another search engine can recognise whether your site is good enough to rank. Links to and from your
site will also add to your credibility and the quality of your content.

Internet Marketing Packages

Paying to rank highly
You could always pay to have a sponsored link listed high up on search engine results but realistically this
is not a possibility for most businesses. It is far better to try to use search engine optimisation to its fullest
to achieve similar results.

Reciprocal Linking
If you can link to another site and encourage them to link with you in return then you can add to the quality
of your content and increase your chances of being ranked highly. This will also increase your flow of traffic,
which is of course another factor that a search engine will take into account when deciding whether to place
you in the search results.

If you rely on the success of your website to generate revenue through sales then an effective website that
appears high in the listings is of paramount importance and these helpful ideas should help you get started.

 

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Positioning Tagged With: , ,

Hints and tips to help direct traffic to your blog

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you are a blogger then you will undoubtedly aim to increase the flow of traffic to your blog, and there
are some key things that you can do to achieve this.

Choose a Topic you are Familiar with
The first thing that you should do is make sure that you are writing about a subject you know a great deal
about or that you feel you are an authority on. If you want people to want to visit your
site then you need to make sure you are giving them useful information and that
you sound like you know what you are talking about.

Be Original to keep your Quality High
Keep the quality of your writing high as well. Be original in your writing and do not
copy what anyone else has written as this will be picked up straight away. If you
link  with other people’s blogs and they link back to yours then this will improve
the quality of your content also.

Read what other experts have to say
If you want to be an expert then read what other experts have to say. Find out what they are talking about
and learn what topics are particularly current and interesting at the moment. You can follow suit by
opening up your own.


Blog Commenting Package

Keep your blog updated
It is important that you update your blog regularly. You may attract interest at first and may start to build
up a loyal readership but if after a while you stop updating as regularly you will soon start to lose your
audience as they will get tired of reading stale content.

Add in an image that matches what you are writing about
If you add an image into your post then you may find that the content is more attractive to readers. People
will see what you have written and start to relate to it. To achieve this effect, however, you need to make
sure that the image you use matches the content of your article.

Format your blog in a way that is easy to understand
Your blog should be laid out in a way that is simple and easy to read. Avoid a complicated layout where the
text cannot be read for all of the graphics or where the design makes your blog hard to read. Don’t use too
much coding and avoid using JavaScripts where your content will sit. Flash objects will detract from the
bog so you might not want to include them if you want your text to be able to stand alone.

Keep your upload time short
You should remember that the amount of time your blog takes to upload is an important factor in whether
people will stick with it and wait to read it. If it is too long then you will have lost your audience. Keep your
upload time as short as you can. You should also remember that Google takes the upload time into
consideration when assessing the quality of your content. A wordpress plugin or resizing the images you
have included could all help achieve this aim.

Reply to your readership
If someone comments on your blog then you should comment in return. This will build a good relationship
with your readers and if you use a wordpress plugin you can be notified when this happens so that you can
be quick to post your response. You could pose a question to your readers to see what they come up with.
This will all help you to engage with the people that read what you write about.

Share your blog through an RSS feed and if you want to increase your traffic you could always try
interviewing particularly well-established bloggers that write on similar topics to you. This will create
interest amongst your readers and get them visiting your blog.

 

Filed Under: Blog Promotion Tagged With:

Increasing traffic flow to your blog

March 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It can take a while to stream traffic to your blog and it can be disheartening for people who have not
been blogging long to find that they are not getting the readership they had hoped for. There are
ways to encourage people to your blog though.

Publish to Bookmarking sites
You could publish your articles through social bookmarking sites. These are
accessible to everyone and are completely free so get a lot of traffic. This will
draw a great deal of attention to your articles and get you some real exposure.
You can submit your articles yourself or have your readers submit them for
you. If your article is particularly good then you can expect lots of readers
and you should only send your best articles to these bookmarking sites.
If you bombard them with your work then the site might start to recognise
your work as spam and will stop publishing for you.

Get Involved with other Blogs
Choose blogs that are similar to the topics you write about and get involved in the discussion around
them. People will soon start to check out your own blogs and comment on your writing too. This can
generate a fair bit of traffic to your blog and as people become familiar with your writing they will
start to read what you have to say more frequently.

Link with other Blogs
Link to other blogs that discuss topics that are related to what you write about. You could request
links in return but more often than not you won’t need to as you will often receive a link back anyway.
You should aim to do this frequently to build up the number of links back to your own blog and
increase your blog’s validity. This will draw traffic to your blog and encourage increased readership.

Work on your Blog Daily
The more you add to your blog and the more you work on it, the more you will add to the quality.
The better the quality of your content the more traffic you will receive. This tends to be the general
message anyway, so it is worth bearing in mind.

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Change what you write about
Think about what you are writing about and the style of your writing. You may well be up against lots
of writers even in the niche you have chosen. If you want to be noticed you have to stand out so avoid
sicking to the same topics and writing about the same things. Don’t write what other people are writing
as your readers will have already read it before. Think about writing interesting and original articles
that people will want to read so that people will come back to your blog on a regular basis.

These tips should help you get started so that the traffic to your blog improves and your content
becomes trusted and gains credibility. Working on your blog regularly will add to the quality of your
work so that your articles will receive more recognition as well as more attention.

 

Filed Under: Blog Promotion Tagged With:

Using twitter lists effectively

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Twitter lists are a great way to organise your contacts and the people you are following on Twitter so
that you can really get the most out of the site and be as efficient as possible in the way that you use it.
You can group the people you are following according to your own definitions and then you can track
tweets from others that are relevant to these groups even if you aren’t currently following them.

Stay in Contact in a Focused Way
If you have a list you can stay in contact with people and what they
are doing in a more specific way, which will prevent your feeds from
becoming too cluttered. This will ultimately mean that you can
manage your feeds in a more organised way and locate the
information you are looking for more easily.

Find Feeds More Easily
The feature lets you find people that are tweeting about topics you
are interested in more easily too and because you can group people
together you can access your groups quickly to find out what they are
tweeting about rather than having to search through your entire
contacts list. You can access your groups and start to tweet on the
topics they are talking about too. If you want to group people without
following them this is also possible as you are only following the ‘list’
rather than the people in it.

Appear in other People’s Listings
It is equally important that you appear in targeted listings. This will make you more visible especially to
people who are related to your business for instance. Appearing in lists makes it easier for people to find
you too. You can organise your groups according to any feature, whether it be conversation topic, people
related to your work, or people you usually retweet. You could offer a list of people that tweet about
certain items to your followers.

How to do it….
Creating a Twitter list is easy, you simply select ‘create new list’ and choose a name, which will preferably
be search engine optimised. You can make your list public or you can hide it, the choice is yours. You can
add and remove users as much or as little as you want. You can use pages to add people or you can use
your profile, or both.

Social Bookmarking Package

Why it is worth taking the time….
Twitter is a great way to market yourself and your business so it is well worthwhile. It might take a few
moments to get organised and group people but it is important that you take this opportunity and make the
most out of the feature. Once you have done this you will want to participate in group activity. There is little
point using Twitter lists to organise your Twitter community if you are not going to become actively involved.
Start your own topics and tweet people who have posted about topics you are interested in. Rather than get
bogged down in rapidly increasing the number of followers you have, concentrate on targeting the lists you
appear on and the number of lists you have as this will give you the greatest marketing advantage.

 

Filed Under: Twitter Management Tagged With: , ,

How to create a great facebook advertising campaign

March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Producing ads on Facebook can take up a great deal of time so it is good to create an efficient workflow
so you can make the most out of the time you do have. There are some tips to help you do this more easily.

Keep your ads related to one another
The account is at the top of the scale with the ad campaigns beneath it and it is at this point that finances
are decided on a daily basis. A campaign can run a number of ads at the same time all with their own
characteristics and attributes such as run time etc. Although there is no need for them all to be related
to one another, it is better if they are just for recording practices.

Find out who you are targeting
The first thing you will need to do is work out who you are targeting. If you are advertising for a client
then have them explain who your audience should be so you understand the demographic well enough.

Get your ads approved
Get your ads checked as you do them. It can cost you a great deal of time if you create the ads and then
submit them all in one go only for them to be declined at the editing stage. It is at this point that you can
alter them for each segment etc.

Have an appropriate and relevant landing page
Create a landing page that suits the ad. Your ad might get rejected at the editorial stage if it links to an
irrelevant site, meaning that all of your hard work will have gone to waste. A good landing page that suits
the pay per click campaigns might take time but will give you a higher return in the long run.

Keep the content relevant
The title of the ad, the images you use and the content must all be related if you are going to have it
approved. Use the information you have about your target audience to really hone in on the right group
of people.

Set your budget for each campaign
When you are starting a new campaign make sure you change your budget appropriately to ensure you
do not spend more than you had intended to.

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Setting your bid
If you are setting a bid, then set it low initially so that you can pause your ad if you need to. Setting your
bid at about a penny means that your ads won’t display and spend your allocated budget.

Once you have gotten to this point, click ‘create an ad’. You should now be at the point where you have a
paused campaign holding an ad for each target sector. If your ads do not pass the editorial stage then it
should only be a case of making some slight changes.

Track your conversion rates
Once you have created the ads you will want to monitor their success so track conversion rates.
Google has an analytical tool to help you to do this.

Lastly, remember the fans you already have. You can use their posts as ads and promote the content on
your brand pages. This means that you can connect with your target audience through a less sales-focused
approach but in a way that is still promotional

 

Filed Under: Facebook, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

Growing your income through multiple revenue streams

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The best way to secure your finances as well as your job is to build revenue from a number of different
sources. In a world that is struggling through tough financial times, it is now more important than ever
to have income you can fall back on and this can come in the form of multiple revenue streams.

Start up a Small Business or Blog about others
If you were to start up a small business, what would it be in and what service would you offer? If you
are thinking of doing something like this, now is the time. You can create a website and endorse it
online, or even advertise through blogging, which can generate income on its own if you were to blog
for other businesses.

Pay Per Click Marketing or Charging Subscription Fees
You could market other businesses through pay per click whereby you generate income every time
you direct a visitor to another business’s site through a link you have advertised on your own site.
You might be able to collect donations towards your site if you are found to be particularly helpful.

People like to have memberships especially if they feel it gives them some greater sense of entitlement.
Charging people a subscription fee to belong to your site is a valid option to consider. You could do
this just by setting up a paypal account.

Internet Marketing Packages

Contextual Advertising through Google
If you do have your own small business, then remember the value of the contextual ad. Google or
another search engine will direct traffic to your site by advertising for you on sites that are connected
to the service you offer.

Sell Advertising to other Businesses
You could sell advertising to other businesses that want to have their logo or brand advertised on
your site. You can charge for this but the amount you charge will have to depend on how much traffic
your site currently receives.

Sell Products Related to your Blog
If you have a site that you blog about and that focuses on a certain topic then you could take advantage
of this by selling products that are connected to the topic of the blog and the content of the site.

Resell Products
It is possible to make money as a web hosting reseller and work from your own home. You can find
round the clock help and advice so that you can sell on behalf of another host provider in full confidence.

Promote yourself on Facebook
Using Facebook to advertise is also a good idea. It is fast becoming one of the most popular ways to
advertise and market businesses online. All you need to do is sign in and advertise. You will need your
own landing page for people to come and visit to learn more about you. Use keywords sensibly to get
the point across, as well as catchy titles.

It does not need to be very difficult to make money through different revenue streams it just requires
time and patience. If you know how to get started it is more than possible to make a comfortable income
for yourself online. Starting with a website or starting your own blog should be your starting point and
then everything else will come into play.

 

 

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tagged With:

Using twitter to promote your business

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Twitter is a great social media to use, especially if you are looking to promote yourself and you want
to understand your potential target market. The more people you have that follow you the better
and the more likely it is that they will see what you are up to and become interested in your activities.
There are lots of ways that you can boost the number of followers you have and here we look at some
of the best tips available.

Use Twitter Tools
Twitter Tools is a great way to add to your contact list and if you follow others they
may start to follow you. You can contact people via email to tell them why you would
like them to follow you and what you think you can offer. Follow-ups like this can really
boost the attention you receive.

Use your social media
You can use any other form of social media you currently use to publicise the fact that you are
now using Twitter too. This is likely to direct your friends on other sites towards Twitter if they
are already a member and start following you. Make sure that you use all other forms of media
you use and update people regularly that you are using Twitter and tell them about what they
can read about you next time you write your status. There is also the option to post to Facebook
from Twitter so that people can start to become interested in your Twitter feeds even if they are
not members themselves. You may end up encouraging friends to join just so that they can read
your tweets.

Add it to your signature
When you sign off on your emails add your Twitter details to it so that every time one of your
email contacts receives something from you they will also have the opportunity to add you as
a contact on Twitter.

Blog about Twitter
If you blog then this is also a good opportunity to direct attention to yourself on Twitter and
you can also include a link in the content.

Add Twitter Widget
Add a Twitter widget to your site so that people can not only see that you use it but can go on
and follow you so they can keep up to date with your tweets.

Use Twitter Directories
Twitter listings exist so that people can find information about you and can follow you. It is
good to find out what these are and add in your own details to start attracting even more followers.

Add to your home page
Your profile page can be altered and designed to give as much information about you as you
want so the more interesting it is the more people will want to follow you as a result so
remember to work on it to get it looking good.

Keep your activity level high
Your level of activity is important so make sure you answer people’s tweets in a timely manner
and post things for people to read about on a regular basis. The higher your level of activity the
more people will be interested in what you are saying and doing.

Keep your posts interesting
Don’t post just for the sake of posting. What you say should be interesting and appealing so that
people will want to comment on it and continue following you.

Guest blog for major Tweeters
It is possible to contact people who have a large number of followers and offer to blog for them so
that they will promote your post for you through Twitter. This can increase the amount of
publicity you get.

Add links to your articles
You may already be writing articles for your site online and if you do you might want to link to
them through your Twitter posts so that others can go and read them. This improves the quality
of your Twitter posts as well.

Talk about Twitter online
If you are actively involved in blogging and forums then you can talk about Twitter and draw
attention to your own Twitter profile at the same time. In so doing you are inviting people to
come and follow you.


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Ask your followers to suggest followers
Once you become an established Twitter ‘player’ you can encourage your existing followers to
invite their contacts to follow you too by publicising the fact that you are looking to boost your
number of followers. It is likely that some of them will try to do this for you.

Organise a competition
Use your website and the other forms of social media that you currently use to incentivise
people to follow you. This could come in the form of a contest for instance, which might involve
giving a prize to the contact that gives you the highest number of followers.

Use Twitter as your home page
One option is to replace your website’s home page with your Twitter profile page so that people
immediately know you are using Twitter and can follow you. They can then go through this landing
page to navigate through the remainder of your website.

Add your Twitter details to your business cards
If you use business cards then when you next print them, have the details of your Twitter URL
added to the bottom so people have an extra way to get in touch and find out about your business.

Keep following
Find new people that you can follow every day in the event that they may follow you in return.
If someone starts to follow you then follow them to heighten your profile so that their followers
may become interested in you too.

Talk to fellow Twitter fans
There are plenty of online organisations dedicated to discussion about Twitter and joining these
will give you more opportunities to discuss your own Twitter account. You will be talking to people
who enjoy using Twitter so it is likely that they will want to follow you.

Tweet-ups
If you attend gatherings organised by people who use Twitter then you can meet people who are
following you face to face. This will add to the relationship and give more clout to your following
online.

Think of new ideas
Be bold and original with your ideas. Use any way you can think of to maximise the attention that
you receive on Twitter so that you can boost your followers.

 

Filed Under: Twitter Management Tagged With: , , ,

Some great SEO strategies for your business

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We have long known about search engine optimisation and there is a wealth of material out there
dedicated to the topic so that we might find out how to accurately achieve this in our websites and
rank highly in search engine listings. There are some useful techniques that will help us get there,
and here is a list of perhaps the most valuable ten.

Focus on your content
The first thing to remember is that it is important to ensure the quality of your
content. If your site is full of back links and authenticated content the chances
are that you will rank more highly than other sites with pages that have poorer
content. Keep in mind that the more frequently you update and add to this
content the more likely it is that you visitors will make repeated visits to keep
themselves abreast of the information you are providing. If your content is
old every time they come to view your pages, your visitors are unlikely to return.

Use relevant keywords
Keywords are important. Think of the terms that people may enter into a search engine when trying
to find the information you provide. You want specific phrases that apply to your content and that
are relevant. It is better to think of phrases rather than just keywords as this will help to ensure that
you appear in more relevant listings that you have a greater chance of ranking highly in. Don’t overuse
your keywords and phrases, though. Your content should still sound natural and readable but should
contain enough keywords that a search engine can recognises the relevance of your content.

Use them carefully
Think of not only how many times you use a keyword but where in the text you are using them too.
Your keywords should appear in the title and subheadings and in bullet points within the text. You will
probably want to highlight some of your keyphrases in bold or italicise them so that they stand out a
little more on the page. You might want to use them at the start of a paragraph so they are more
prominent and you should vary them so that you are not using the same words all of the time.

Encourage links between sites
Links between yourself and other sites will add to the quality of your content and search engines will
pick up on this. If the sites you are linking with have a good reputation and are also deemed as having a
high standard of content then this will boost your ratings too. Take the opportunity to reach out to sites
that you think you could link to and ask for them to reciprocate.

You can find a link directory online that may allow you to put your link in free of charge but if you
eventually do need to make a payment then you may want to consider doing so as it can make all the
difference. If you need help finding good quality sites to link with then think about the following:

Firstly write quality text to encourage others to approach you to link with your site. If you provide an
option on all of your pages for people to link to your page then you may find that this makes inbound links
more frequent. Familiarise yourself with the people who own the sites you want to link with as this will
increase your chances of them linking back to you. Linking with the pages of a site that you want to link
with yours may be enough to make this happen anyway.

Look at how you have structured your site
The way you organise the content and structuring of your site could have an impact on the extent to
which your site is optimised for search engines. Link to other pages in your site so that your visitors can
navigate with increased ease. The authority of your sites can also be increased by doing so.

You might want to headline with a sitemap so that people who come to your site can work their way
around it and find the content they are looking for.

Track the success of your site
It’s important to track your site’s SEO performance so that you can see if your efforts are paying off.
Make use of the many free analysis tools out there, including:

Track how well your site is doing so that you can consider whether you need to improve any aspects of
the content or monitor the success of the changes you have already made. There are lots of online tools
available that will allow you to do this.

Keep up to date with SEO changes
A key activity for you should be keeping on top of the latest SEO updates so that you can make sure that
you are doing to your site whatever your competitors might be doing to theirs. There are some really
helpful sites that will let you follow the latest trends and changes in SEO so that you can keep up to date
with them all as they arise. You may want to bookmark each of them so that you can check them regularly
to avoid falling behind.

Stick to the rules
There are ways to short cut on your SEO but if you opt to use black hat techniques then you are risking
affecting the quality of your content and search engines like Google are becoming increasingly able to
detect these practices. Bombarding your text with keywords will alter the quality of your text and
potentially turn away visitors even if you do appear high in the listings. You might gain some short term
traffic but it is unlikely you would receive repeat visits. You may even have your site banned for not playing
by the rules. White hat techniques, which are those that are in accord with the rules, are the ones to keep in mind.

Keep your content original
If your site has a lot of pages and a lot of content you should look to avoid duplication as this will affect the
authority rating attributed to you by various search engines. Try to keep the information fresh and relevant
throughout so that no two of your pages are too similar.

Using articles from other websites will also affect your authority rating. A search engine will detect that the URL
for that page is very like another that contains the same article. If you rehash a page and just change the name of
the product, for instance, a search engine will most likely pick up on this and recognise it as a duplication. If you
use different domain names to display your site this will also create a duplication so you should avoid this and
opt for only one domain name instead.

Why description tags are important
Description and meta tags are not to be ignored as these can boost your ratings. Make sure these tags contain lots
of information about your site that is perfectly summarised using plenty of keywords and phrases. You might also
want to include a call for action because these tags may be the ones that are displayed in the search engine listings
with you’re the link to your site. Lots of sites don’t pay attention to these tags anymore but they give you the option
to increase your keyword usage and some search sites still use them to classify the relevance of your content to the
search term.

 

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: , ,

Social Media and predictions for the New Year

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As far as social media is concerned, 2011 was a decent year and the major social networking players
carried on growing and expanding through the year. There were also some new faces on the scene
with Google+ starting to make an appearance. The main concerns for users of these sites continues
to be centred around privacy even now that social media is making its first foray into the world of
business and marketing. But that was 2011 and now the time has come to look to the coming year
and think about what might be happening in the months ahead.

Here we look at some predictions about what is coming up in 2012.

The Relationship between Cloud, Social and Mobile Technology
It is predicted that we will see an interplay between the social, mobile and cloud technologies. Until
now we have only seen these technologies fulfil their capabilities as individuals in their own right
but in the coming year it is thought that we will see all three working together in combination with
each other. Additionally, it is expected that more and more businesses will start to use cloud storage
to manage their data, whilst more sites will be able to communicate with mobile technology so that
they can be accessed more widely.

The combination of the three technologies presents various opportunities to the business world and
internet marketers alike.

Social Media in Marketing
Whereas once social media was only used by young online users wanting to communicate with their
friends, it is now an online staple with users in almost every country of the world. As such, more and
more businesses and small online retailers are tapping into the opportunities social networking affords
and next year it may become so wide spread that it is an essential part of any firm’s marketing strategy.
It has even been suggested that social media may end up being the main channel of communication
between a business and its target audience.

Social networking for businesses in the form of salesforce chatter is set to carry on growing throughout
2012, becoming more familiar to the business world, in a way that Facebook is perhaps the most familiar
social networking tool for consumers.

Social Bookmarking Package

Search Engines
The use of social media in conjunction with search is an idea we became increasingly aware of throughout
the last year. We saw twitter feeds emerging at the top of Google search results and Facebook likes
appearing in Bing listings, so much so that it is likely that two will eventually merge and become one and
the same. The development of search as an activity is likely to depend very much upon its interaction
with social media.

Integrating the Strategies
Businesses will need to look to integrate the various strands of their online marketing strategy so that they
are looking beyond the use of the social plugin. It will be necessary for them to look at their platforms, their
use of social media and their groups so that they can offer their online users and consumers a complete and
comprehensive experience. This might involve thinking about using social media to provide quality links
and content, for instance.

Social Networking Sites
Although commenting on the different social networks and their projected successes is usually quite difficult,
it is possible to make an exception in the case of Facebook. It is predicted that their growth and span will reach
further than that of Google to position itself as the main social networking site in the world. To maintain this
position it is likely that Facebook will have to grow beyond its current functions and look at other ways to
cement its use.

In terms of social media at least, the coming year should be full of interesting developments.

 

Filed Under: Social media marketing, Social network marketing Tagged With: ,
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