February 6, 2018February 4, 2018Blogging, Blogging for Businesses, BusinessLeave a comment

How to Effectively Promote Your Blog Posts

Promote blog posts Valkyrie Media Solutions Indianapolis Digital Marketing Agency

Have you been looking for strategies to boost the number of people who are reading your blog posts? Social media is an easy and cost-effective approach to enable you to do exactly that. Blog posts are ideal for sharing information; people want to tell others about useful ideas, special offers, as well as other types of material they find useful.

With an easy post, it is possible to generate a considerable amount of website traffic. If your posts are engaging, relevant, and useful to your readers, you will develop a long-lasting relationship with them and consequently see an increase in revenue.

Here are four ways to effectively promote your blog posts :

Make Certain Your Posts are Searchable

Creating an informative, appealing blog post is unquestionably a very important thing.However if your target audience never sees it, it’s virtually a waste of time. To ensure that your content appears in search engines when local customers search for the search keywords related to your business, thoughtful keyword selection and implementation is crucial.

Add Social Sharing Buttons

This might appear obvious, but you should include social sharing buttons to your blog posts. If youre using WordPress, there are plug-ins that enable you to automatically add social sharing buttons to each post. Other blogging platforms have comparable solutions. Adding the sharing buttons to the close of your blog posts makes it effortless for your readers to share them on their own social media profiles.

Post Links To Them On Your Profiles And Pages

Another thing you must do is post links to your blog posts on all your social media profiles and pages. For example, post a link on your Facebook fan page, tweet about it on Twitter, or post about it on LinkedIn. You can even create a short video overview of the topic and post it on YouTube to send more viewers as well.

Add Images & Visuals to Increase Sharing

Finally, you should include images and other visuals to your posts to boost the number of shares. People respond much more to posts that contain images. These types of posts are shared much more often than plain text posts. Therefore, it is well worth the additional time and effort to find or create a simple image to enhance your content.

Utilizing these uncomplicated techniques will tremendously impact the quantity of attention your business receives on the internet. Blogging has turned out to be among the most useful and effective forms of customer acquisition and retention; therefore you cannot afford to ignore it. By developing solid blogging practices, it is possible to out-shine the majority of your closest local competitors.

Have questions or need help getting your business blog set up? Contact us today!

January 18, 2018Business Social Media, Social Media, Social Media MarketingLeave a comment

How to Create Social Media Buzz for Your Brand

Many businesses make the mistake of focusing on trying to attain a great number of followers by any means necessary. When it comes to building a highly-engaged and loyal social following quality is much more important than quantity. Getting people excited about your business can be a great way to drive new sales and boost revenue. Social media makes it painless to build relationships through innovative tactics.

Here are some ways to create social buzz for your brand without coming across as pushy.

Hold Contests

A proven way to start building social media buzz for your business is to hold drawings or contests to give away prizes. Ask people to follow you on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media websites to be entered into the drawing. Have the winners post pictures of themselves receiving their prizes so you can show future contestants that your contests and prizes are legitimate.

Stay on Top of Trending Industry Topics

Social media is the place where your target audience goes to stay on top of the latest news and trending topics. Keeping up on the trending topics in your industry is a great way to engage your audience, create buzz about your business, and use that trend to your best advantage. However, be certain to keep it professional and choose your topics wisely so this doesn’t backfire and have a negative impact on your brand.

Promote Your Events

Social media is the ideal platform to display any noteworthy company events, such as grand openings, new product launches, and special promotions. Facebook Events allows you to send personal invitations to your fans and keep track of their responses. You can also share videos and photos before, during, and after your event to create even more interest.

Tell Everybody What Youre Doing on Social Media

Dont limit your social media buzz tactics to your social media accounts only. For example, tell customers at your establishment what youre doing on social media. Send your email list a blast. Write a blog post about it. There are limitless ways to get the word out about your social activities.

Without a plan to engage and energize your social media following, your page could end up abandoned very quickly. However, by communicating often and staying focused on your audience, social media is a sure-fire way to grow your business. Need help with your brand’s social media? Contact us today!

December 12, 2017Business Social Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips and Tricks, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Tips For Creating Better Business Social Media Posts

Today the Internet is primarily a visual medium. It is vastly different than it was years ago when it was primarily filled with blocks and blocks of text. Technology has evolved, and videos and images are the dominating force behind successful content engagement and effectiveness.

Our brains are able to process images up to 1,000 times faster than reading text. The internet has become a place that is filled with visual data.

You may have noticed social media posts that include images and/or video tend to get more shares and likes. With social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram, visual content plays an essential role in effective online interaction and communication.

Here are a few tips on how you can use visual content to create better business social media posts and drive more engagement:

1. Use Content-Inclusive Images to Get More Shares And Likes

Social media users love images that include quick snippets of content to help them out; such as how-to content, infographics, quotes, checklists, and tips. Be sure to incorporate some of these in your posts. Your audience will be drawn to these types of visuals. Therefore, the more of this type of content you share, the more of your content they will consume. Not only that, but these types of images are often shared, which gives you greater exposure on social media.

2. Use Images With A Call To Action

You don’t have to use images solely to convey information. You can also use them as lead generation and content teasers for articles, blog posts, social media posts, and more. Wherever you post them, just add a call to action to get people to click on the image.

3. Use The Right Tools To Create Your Images

You dont have to spend hundreds of dollars on graphical editing software in order to create compelling images. You can use tools like Stencil, PromoRepublic, and Canva to create your images.

4. Hire A Professional If Youre Not Comfortable

If you feel like youre graphically challenged and are unable to create images yourself, you can always hire a graphic artist to help. A social media marketing consultant can handle images, as well as other types of content, to ensure everything flows well.

Need help with your business’ social media? Contact us today!

December 5, 2017Business Social Media, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, YouTubeLeave a comment

How to Get More Social Media Engagement

Social media has become a crowded place. With so many businesses, celebrities, news stories and trends filling the feeds, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Just going through the motions of posting will not be enough to gain the attention of your target audience. You’ll need to utilize strategies that will interest and attract your customers.

Here are three tips to help you stand out on social media and get more social media engagement from your followers:

#1) Dont Be Boring:

It may sound obvious, but you dont want to create boring content for your social media posts. You want to keep things engaging and interesting to achieve the best results. You must keep in mind you aren’t only competing against other businesses. Youre also up against all the pictures from friends and family, funny memes, and cat photos that jam social media timelines.

If you dont have interesting content you won’t get any engagement from your audience. The less engaged they are, the less likely they will come back to your pages. Discover what types of content your customers like the most and create more of it for your social media marketing campaigns.

#2) Branch Out From Facebook

While Facebook is the largest social media network with the most traffic, your customers are also using other social media websites. Pinterest is a great source of social media traffic. Instagram is another terrific social media outlet to use for visual content marketing, such as photos and videos.

A post shared by Valkyrie Media Solutions (@valkyriemediasolutions) on Nov 30, 2017 at 2:55pm PST

LinkedIn is powerful for establishing more professional connections and finding suitable employees. And don’t forget about YouTube– it is the largest video sharing social media network. Videos are hot online content and gaining popularity every day among consumers.

#3) Go Visual

Online consumers prefer visual forms of information, as opposed to blocks of pure text. Aim to use images and video in your social media marketing efforts as frequently as possible. It may feel like it takes a lot of additional effort to create these images and videos. However, it is well worth the effort when you consider the benefits it will reap. Images and videos stand out and command attention while plain text is easily passed up.

These three tips are simple and easy to understand, but dont let that fool you. They are powerful ways to increase the amount of attention you receive on social media websites. Using them will help you rise above the noise and gain the attention of your customers. Need help with your business social media marketing? Contact us today!

November 27, 2017Business, Business Social Media, Facebook, Social Media, Tips and TricksLeave a comment

3 Tips For Maximizing Your Business’ Social Media

As a business owner, it is crucial that you use social media to connect with and stay in touch with your customers and potential customers. By its very nature, social media is a powerful communication tool. However, you must use it properly in order to generate more sales and new customers.

Here are a few tips to help you maximize your business’ social media:

1. Go Where Your Audience Is

There are many different popular social media websites on the internet. When youre first starting out, it is not a good idea to jump and try to master all of them at once.

Instead, you should focus only on a few of the main sites that your audience utilizes. Do a little research and find out where your customers and potential customers are spending the most time.

Nearly everyone is on Facebook, so thats a great place to start. However, you should also consider other sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. Depending on the nature of your business, these other sites can add significant value to your marketing efforts.

2. Post Often and Consistently

Businesses that post content frequently and consistently tend to generate better results from social media than businesses that post sporadically. Social media is all about engagement, and regular posting will ensure your business appears in the timelines of your audience. The more often your content appears there, the more likely it is they will pay attention to your posts.

It’s best to establish an effective posting schedule that works for you. Whether you want to post once, twice, or three times or more per day, get on that schedule and stick to it for the best results.

3. Mix Promotions with Helpful Content

You may think that the most effective way to market on social media is to always promote your products and services. However, this approach does not work very well. Instead, it could turn your followers off and cause them to stop following you.

It is best to alternate between promotions/advertisements and valuable content that is relevant and helpful to your audience.

This can be as simple as providing links to news stories, articles, blog posts, videos, and any other type of content that is related to your business. Some people will tell you that you need to do at least a 50-50 mix of promotions with content but experiment with different ratios to see what works well for your business.

Want to know more or need help with your small business social media? Contact us today!

November 20, 2017October 22, 2017Business, Google My Business, Tips and TricksLeave a comment

How to Set Up Your Google My Business Profile

Making certain that your business is easy to find is the number one key to ensuring your success these days — particularly digital marketing success. However, this is not as easy as it sounds. The detailed process of making your company stand out from your competitors can be both time consuming and difficult. However, Google My Business has assisted local businesses gain more exposure and convert more local prospects into paying customers. This local listing platform helps to entice more customers in the area who may be searching for your type of service or product.

The problem is, there are still countless local businesses that have not yet capitalized on this critically important advertising and marketing platform. All it takes to turn Google My Business into a profit machine is to complete your profile, add as much information as possible, and optimizing it for higher rankings. However, most businesses struggle with this very first step, which is to complete your profile. Not many business owners are completing their profiles to 100 percent. However, if you want to get the best results, this step cannot be ignored.

Here are a few tips to get you started on the right path to properly setting up your Google My Business profile:

Make Sure That Your Business Is in Fact Listed

Obviously, before you can focus on getting a 100 percent score, you need to first make certain that you’re listed on Google My Business. Type in your business’s name, address, or telephone number into Google search and see if anything comes up. If so, you know that you are listed and you may proceed to completing and claiming it. If it isn’t listed, you want to create a listing for your company as soon as possible.

Setting Up Your Google My Business Profile

If you want to get a 100% score, you need to ensure that your profile is completely and accurately filled out. First, fill in all the required fields. This actually contributes towards a great bulk of your score. It includes fields such as:

* Your company name as used in your everyday real-world business
* Your physical address
* Your local phone number

Once you have the basics filled out, you get additional score points for listing:

* Your company website address
* Your company email address
* Hours of operation
* Payment methods
* Detailed description of your business
* Pictures and Videos
* Appropriate categories
* Strategic keyword placement
* and more

Set up Google My Business

The good news is that it is simple to see what you need to do to improve your score via the Google My Business dashboard. Simply log in and take a look to see what your next steps should be. This is indicated by the profile completion bar shown on the dashboard. Should you need help with anything, it may be best to get the help of a professional local marketing expert. Have questions? Contact us and we will be happy to help.

November 14, 2017November 14, 2017Business Social Media, Facebook, Local SEO, Social Media, Tips and Tricks, Twitter, YouTubeLeave a comment

Business Social Media Tips for Gaining Authority Status in Your Local Market

People have a tendency to conduct business with companies that they trust. A simple way for your business to gain more trust from your target market is by establishing yourself as the number one go-to authority within your niche. Establishing yourself as the expert could take some time if you are just now beginning to build awareness for your brand. The fantastic news is… it doesn’t need to be difficult thanks to social media.

We have some wonderful business social media tips to help you gain authority in your local market and acquire new customers.

Don’t know exactly what to do?

Here are three easy ways you can utilize social media as a way to build relationships and keep an open dialogue with your target market online:

The very first thing you should do is frequently update all of your social media profiles.

If you are on a few different social media sites, it’s crucial that you keep each of your profiles updated every day with fresh updates, posts, and statuses. This demonstrates that you are active in the marketplace and that you care about communicating with your customers and followers. Every time a new potential customer visits one of your social media profiles, he or she will see a hotbed of activity, which is likely to make your company very appealing.

Another method of establishing your authority is to be helpful in your marketplace.

A simple method to help people is to answer any questions they might have related to your industry or business. For instance, you can use Twitter to discover people asking questions regarding topics related to your service or product using Twitter search filters. Then, simply take a few moments to answer a few of the questions that pop up. If you keep up this effort over time, you will become a known authority on Twitter. This will directly impact the total amount of business you can generate there.

Another wonderful way to boost your authority is to create a “how to” style YouTube channel.

Nearly every business has subjects and topics that their customers and prospects would love to learn more about. If you’re able to create a series of videos that answer these questions, you can build a massive following of loyal subscribers who anxiously await each video you post. People will watch your videos, see you as a trusted source of information, and be more likely to conduct business with you in the near future.

These are only a few strategies to build valuable authority status using social media; there are many more. However, this is a great place to begin if you are interested in finding effective online strategies that can positively impact your bottom line.

Need help leveraging your business social media to attract new customers? We can help! Contact us today!

November 6, 2017October 21, 2017Citations, Customer Reviews, Google 3-Pack, Google RankingLeave a comment

Rank Your Business in Google 3 Pack

Three tips to Help Your Business Appear in Google 3 Pack

The shift from Google’s 7-pack, to a diminished 3-pack, has had a significant impact on local SEO. Many businesses struggled to get featured when there were seven spots available. Now getting into the top three can seem like rocket science. The great news is that this goal isn’t impossible. However, it will take some time, skills, and knowledge to get it done. Being seen by local customers when they are searching for your type of service or product is the most targeted type of marketing known today. But getting into Google 3 Pack can be tricky unless you truly understand what you are doing. Here are three useful tips to help you get started:

Old and New Google 3 Pack

1. Get more citations

When it comes to ranking your local listing, one thing Google pays close attention to is how frequently a company is mentioned in other sources. In other words, it looks for “citations” to validate your company. A citation is a mention of your business name along with another piece of business information anywhere online — with OR without a link back to your site.
The extra information might be your telephone number, website URL, or physical address. In order to count as a citation, the data must be an EXACT match to the data on your Google My Business listing. Citations help establish to the search engines that you are a real company; therefore, the more of these you have from quality sources, the better your local listing rankings will be.

2. Add photos to your listings

It is no secret that consumers love photographs. The more, high-quality images that you have on Google local listing profile, the more attractive it will be to potential customers. This goes farther than Google; Yelp has even published advice about the best way to optimize your business listings, asserting that photos make a huge difference. It even goes as far as to say that based on research from Review Trackers, consumers spent 2.5 times more of their time on listings that featured photographs.

3. Get as many reviews as you can

Customer reviews are an essential part getting noticed online these days. Customers love writing reviews about businesses and they also enjoy reading them. Google has taken notice of this. It wants to promote the very best local businesses. What better way to ascertain who those businesses are than through positive customer reviews? If you want to really increase your rankings, encourage your customers to leave reviews whenever you can.

Making your business to appear on Google’s 3-pack is a good deal more challenging than it had been with the 7-pack; obviously, since there are fewer spots. The tips above will help, however, you need to continually keep up with local search changes and ensure all of your company’s information is listed correctly and updated going forward. Additionally, make sure you make clever use of categories and strategic keyword placement within your own profile to give it strength.

Need help getting your business into the Google 3 Pack? We can help! Contact us today.

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017Customer Reviews, Facebook reviews, Social MediaLeave a comment

5 Ways to Show Off Your Customer Reviews and Testimonials

You may already know how important customer reviews are in relation to marketing your services and products. They break down the obstacles your potential customers might have when deciding whether or not to conduct business with you. Reviews and testimonials can bring a great deal of credibility to your business, and this ultimately results in higher conversions and more revenue.

Whether you are a dentist, handyman, chiropractor, attorney, or other local services company, it is crucial to develop a certain degree of trust with your prospects. Reviews will help you do exactly that. Positive customer reviews bring an incredible degree of profitability that businesses can’t afford to ignore.

Perhaps you already have some glowing customer reviews and are thinking about how to get more eyes on them. This is crucial.
Here are 5 ways to show off your customer reviews and testimonials for optimum exposure.

1. Your website

Displaying customer reviews on your website will boost sales because these prospects are obviously already interested in your business. Putting your customer reviews and testimonials where they can clearly see them will only work to your advantage. Ideally, you should have a testimonials page. However, don’t be shy about posting a few of them on your homepage and other pages as well.

2. Social Media

It is hardly surprising that displaying your customer reviews on social media will give you fantastic exposure. With millions of visitors daily, these sites provide you with the opportunity to show off your ratings to a huge amount of people. For example, take Facebook.
If you go to the ‘about’ section on your business page timeline, you will notice it if you edit the address section, there is an option to check a box which reads “show map, check-ins and star ratings on the page”.

3. Place them inside of your e-books or reports

If you are giving away complimentary e-books or reports to acquire opt-ins for your email list, put your reviews and testimonials inside of them to boost results. You are already giving them useful information that they find valuable by providing the content. Adding your testimonials and customer reviews will further add to the fact that your business is the perfect one to meet their needs.

4. Add customer reviews to your printed marketing materials

Just as mentioned above, testimonials and reviews may also help any printed advertisements perform far better. You may be limited on space, but it only really takes one or two reviews to show prospects that you are reputable.

5. At your place of business

Displaying your reviews and testimonials inside of your place of business is powerful. It is a terrific way to show existing customers that they’ve made the right choice and can go a long way in customer retention and referrals.

Reviews and testimonials themselves are important. Nonetheless, it’s where you display them that brings the real value. Displaying them in the places mentioned above will shine a positive light on your small business, increase conversions, and allow you to generate more sales.

Want to know more about leveraging your customer reviews? Contact us today!

October 21, 2017October 21, 2017Blogging, Blogging for Businesses, Content Creation, Customer RetentionLeave a comment

The Power of Blogging for Businesses

If you want to retain your customers, blogging for your business is highly recommended. It may seem like a lot of hassle to produce fresh, unique content on a regular basis, but its long-term benefits are worth that extra effort.

So just what is blogging and how can it assist with customer loyalty?

Blogging is a powerful marketing tool, both for attracting new customers and for retaining existing ones. It involves writing useful, interesting content and posting it to your site on a consistent basis. The key point to remember with blogging is that it is more personal than other types of content. The voice you use ought to be conversational, helping to give your brand a more personal, human touch. This is exactly what customers are searching for these days.

How it helps

Consistent blogging keeps your brand firmly in your customers’ minds. They end up returning to the blog to find out what’s new and to keep up with the posts that you make. Needless to say, this only works if you are producing the ideal sort of content. In order to do this, you want to put yourself in the mind of the customer. What are they most likely searching for at this moment in time?

For example, if you have a real estate company for example, consider the most frequent questions you receive. Some suggestions for blog posts that customers would find useful include information on mortgages, leasing tips and any industry specific news that affects their decision to rent or buy.

If the posts you share are helpful and informative, the reader is going to keep coming back. It is crucial that you post on a regular basis in order to keep your audience engaged. If you wait months between posts, your readers will forget all about you and will be unlikely to check back.

Useful blog posts also build you up as an industry expert. This means customers will be more inclined to trust you and want to do business with you going forward.

In general blogging, when done correctly, is one of the most effective methods for generating customer loyalty. It is gaining in popularity each year, so if you aren’t currently using this marketing channel, now is definitely the time to do so. You will be surprised just how much of a difference it makes to both customer retention and customer attraction.

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