When you start to devise your online marketing plan, there are two things that you must take into account:
- Social networking is only getting bigger.
- More and more people are online when they are on the go thanks to smartphones and tablets.
If you lose sight of these two factors, your campaign (or your client’s campaign) will most likely take a hit. The ideal campaign should use gamification apps, create competition and increase engagement with users. Also, try to utilize mobile apps such as Waze, Foursquare or any other GPS-based app to reach potential customers when they are in the neighborhood.
Do “Likes” Really Help?
Facebook can be an amazing tool for companies to directly connect with customers, but one mistake that many marketers make is over-valuing the “Like.” Having people “Like” your Facebook page so they can vote on their friend’s picture or win an iPad may have a negative impact in the long run. It’s much more valuable to have 100 people who actually like your page and will share your content rather than having 10,000 “Likes” and only 100 people actively engaging with your brand.
Many times after visitors “Like” a page, they then choose to hide the page’s updates from their news feed because they aren’t interested in the content. Facebook views this negatively, as posts will have far less of a reach. Over time, if visitors continually hide your updates, then your page could be marked as spam and all of your work will have been in vain.
Built for Speed
When you create pages for your content, keep in mind that it should be easy to share and access on a smartphone and tablet. People are getting less patient and more demanding of receiving information right away. If a page takes too long to load, odds are that a person will leave the page in search of something else. In order prevent that from happening, try building separate pages for mobile users that are consolidated versions of your main website’s content and graphics. You’ll notice a huge difference in loading speed.
Sharing is Caring
Allowing readers to share your content on social networks is multi-beneficial. First, it will increase direct traffic immensely. It will also strengthen your site’s reputation in the eyes of your readers and their respective social circles. And, perhaps most importantly, it will help boost your organic SEO and improve the overall ranking of your site. Some of the key factors that Google takes into account are fresh content and backlinks, so by updating your blog and adding share buttons, you can help yourself climb higher in the all-important organic search results.
However, the most important thing to remember when marketing your site is to think of your audience’s wants and needs. At the end of the day, if you build your site with your target audience in mind, it will achieve the rankings on its own.
Author Bio:
Shauli Zacks is a blogger and online marketer at Somoto, which offers monetization tools for software developers. When Shauli isn’t at work, he can be found hanging out with his family, playing sports and just enjoying life.
