You’ve got a business, a marketing plan, and clear business objectives. Now you need to add a social media strategy into the mix. Not sure where to start? We’re going to break down some simple steps to help you implement a rockstar social media plan. Read more on Create a Social Media Plan in 5 Steps…

Are you an entrepreneur looking for motivation, inspiration, or perhaps ideas and strategies on how to better run your business? Check out our list of 5 books that will help you establish actionable steps in improving every aspect of your professional life from leadership advice to turning your ideas into realities. Read more on 5 Books Every Business Owner Should Read…

When it comes to your social media marketing efforts, it’s important to understand the difference between organic and paid social as well as how having a strategy for both can help you achieve your business objectives. Recent research from Smart Insights reports that Facebook alone has over 1,870 million active users and is still dominating the social media landscape in nearly all measurable categories. The statistics make it hard to justify not including social in your marketing strategy— the question now is how best to use your time and your marketing budget to leverage this vast audience of potential customers.  Read more on Organic vs. Paid Social Media Marketing…

These days, social media is an invaluable must-have for growing your business. The opportunities for increasing brand awareness through strategic social campaigns are boundless, especially if you are taking the steps to ensure your message is hitting the right audience through appropriate channels. Business owners need to be focusing on creating an engaging online presence but often times get lost in the details. However, below are four questions to ask yourself when it comes to promoting your business through social media. Read more on 4 Considerations When Promoting Your Business on Social…

Creating great headlines is a very important step in content creation. Not only are headlines the first thing people see, even before they click, headlines also change the way people think. CoSchedule’s gone as far as saying that headlines rule the content marketing world. Read more on 7 Helpful Tools to Create Amazing Headlines…

Social media is one of the trickiest parts of your business marketing strategy. Keeping up with your social platforms runs a high risk of sucking up all your time. To make it worse, if you aren’t properly connecting with your audience, the whole thing can end up being a waste of time. The best way to avoid these pitfalls is to develop a clear strategy that will make social media engagement worthwhile for your business. Read more on 7 Steps to Build Your Social Media Strategy…

Let’s face it, social media marketing can be a massive time-sink. Seeking and making connections, finding useful content to share and responding to posts and messages by others can be overwhelming—not to mention doing this on a regular basis for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. That’s why social media automation is such a useful tool. But letting the machines do all your socializing for you comes with some inherent drawbacks. If you don’t do it correctly, you can end up driving your social connections away. Here are 5 of the most common social media automation mistakes. Which ones are you making? Read more on 5 Social Media Automation Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid…

Let’s face it, SEO is probably the most bewildering part of online marketing for any business that can’t hire an expert. It’s one of the marketing strategies where SMBs are lagging behind the most. What makes it even more difficult for SMBs is that the mega-corporations have had decades of experience working with the major search engines, making it nearly impossible to compete with their search rankings. Read more on 10 Essential SEO Strategies for SMBs…

Digital deals have become such a prominent and effective tool for marketing business’s products and services. According to a new infographic from SIM Partners, deals and coupons are driving more and more conversions, however, not just online but in the actual place of business. A whopping 66 million digital coupons were redeemed in 2013, which is a 141% increase over the prior year of 2012! Read more on INFOGRAPHIC: How Digital Deals are Driving Local In-Store Conversions…

According to a LinkedIn survey from 2013, the main social media goals for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are to have a consistent presence online and deliver content to their target audience. Interestingly, recent statistics from Thrive Analytics show that this is where SMBs are lagging behind the most. While maintaining local reputation and loyalty marketing seem to be the strong suits for most SMBs, expanding farther into the cyber arenas of SEO, websites, E-Commerce and social media leaves the most to be desired (see graphic below). Read more on Three Areas Small-to-Medium Businesses Need Help With Most…