Author Archives: Laurel Lindsay

About Laurel Lindsay

Laurel Stark née Lindsay has helped thousands of businesses get better results from their online marketing since she began her career as a web marketer in 2003. As a speaker, author and CEO of The New Media Group, she’s been featured on CNN, Entrepreneur.com, CTV and ShawTV.

Your questions answered: Can social media actually drive sales?

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social media marketingToday’s question comes from Kevin who writes, “Can social media actually drive sales?”

That’s a great question, Kevin. If you’re looking for the answer for this, too, then keep on reading.

1. Social SEO

First of all, social media absolutely does drive sales because a lot of social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest & Linkedin— show up on Google search results.

In fact if you have social media profiles, you can search your company name on Google right now and see that not just your website, but almost all your social media properties display on that first page of Google.

In the same way, customers searching for what you sell can see your social media profiles on the first page of Google. The trick is search optimizing those social profiles properly; using keywords, hashtags and mentioning your local service area.
In this way, you get exposure to folks who are actual, qualified prospects to buy your products or services.

2. Social Proof or Implicit Endorsements

The second thing is a presence on social media, as well as building an active engaged community, acts as social proof.
Simply put, most people make their buying decisions based on what other people are doing.

By having people on your social platforms engaging with your business, you are receiving implicit endorsement from them. This behavior, along with a consistent look and feel and recently updated information shows that you’re a credible business that people can trust.

This helps buyers through the part of the sales funnel, or buyer’s journey where they’re evaluating companies to make their purchasing decision. They can then omit businesses that don’t display social proof.

3. Buy Buttons on Social

And lastly, a lot of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now offering a “Buy Now!” button directly in the newsfeed.

You can sell products without having to make your customer leave the actual social media site. So in that way, social media definitely can drive sales. The buy now button is available through the advertising options from each platform.

Has social media helped you drive sales? Share with me in the comments below.

Sharing is caring!  If you found this valuable, please consider sharing it with your network.

https://youtu.be/tw93YjY5pOQ

Web Marketing For Business Workshop, Sidney BC.

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Are you wondering how to get more customers?

  • Not sure how or if today’s web tools can really generate new business?
  • Have little or no marketing budget?
  • Wouldn’t know where to start with marketing your business online?

Than this workshop could be for you!

this is sidneyHosted by the Sidney Business Improvement Area and open to everyone with a business in the Saanich Peninsula- we’re excited to present:

Web Marketing for Business workshop.

All attendees of this 90 minute workshop will leave with everything they need to start marketing their businesses using today’s free online tools.

Attendees will learn:

  1. Why Web Marketing is Critical to your Success – Real life success stories
  2. Differences between Traditional and Web Media – What’s different & what’s the same
  3. Common Pitfalls – and how to avoid them
  4. Getting on Google – be present where your customers are looking for you
  5. Boosting Repeat and Referral Business – with this one easy tool
  6. Social Media for Success – in just 17 minutes a day!
  7. Getting Started – the Actionable Plan for Growth

 

This 90 minute workshop will cover important theoretical concepts as well as practical implementation steps.

One third of this presentation is Question and Answer and attendees also walk away with a take-home “cheat sheet”.

All participants receive ongoing support and valuable reference materials, so they can apply what they’ve learned right away.

 

Register today!

Get your tickets by emailing Donna at info@distinctlysidney.ca

When:

June 24th 2015, 5:30-7pm

Investment:

Free for members of the Sidney BIA
$25 for non members

Where:

Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa
Sallas Room
9805 Seaport Pl, Sidney, BC V8L 4X3, Canada

Hurry, tickets are limited and spots are filling up! RSVP By June 18th to reserve your seat.

Questions? Contact Donna at Sidney BIA by phone: 250.893.0093

About the presenter:

smcampLaurel Lindsay has helped thousands increase their credibility, visibility and sales lead generation in her 11 years as a professional web marketer.

Her unique combination of tech savvy & sales professional net dramatic results for her clients.

Laurel is the Author of “Social In 17” & CEO & Web Marketer at The New Media Group

 

 

What people are saying about Laurel’s workshops:

web marketing workshop
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Get your tickets today by emailing Donna at info@distinctlysidney.ca

3 Tips to Grow and Enrich Your LinkedIn Network

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building-your-linkedin-networkHaving a strong LinkedIn network is very beneficial to your professional career. It can help you land a job, learn new things and make new connections that you never thought would be possible. Although many professionals have a LinkedIn profile, many are still not taking full advantage of the social network. The following are three proven ways to grow and enrich your network on LinkedIn:

1. Go to Events & Take People for Coffee (Add people in the moment)

The most fundamental way to grow your LinkedIn network is also the most old school, but going to events gives you a chance to meet unique individuals with many different backgrounds. Instead of bombing out random add requests on LinkedIn, make real human connections first, before adding anyone. Once you’ve made the initial interaction, consider taking the new connection for coffee. Even if the individual doesn’t work in your field, bring a list of random questions as there is still likely something to be learned or another networking opportunity may present itself. An under-utilized strategy for events and coffee meetings is bringing out your smart phone and adding people with the LinkedIn app on the spot. That way you won’t forget, or have to remember cards or emails.

2. Engage with Your Network (comment, like, share, endorse or recommend)

Similar to all other social networks, you cannot expect anyone to engage with you if you aren’t engaging first. More active members of your network will likely share original composition posts which are great for commenting on with your thoughts, or sharing the post with your network. These posts will allow you to get your profile out to more people, in a shorter amount of time. Less active networks will share trending articles, memes, videos or inspirational messages and liking or commenting on these types of posts will show your support for the author but it can also open up the opportunity for other LinkedIn members to see your profile and connect. If you’ve worked directly with a connection for some time, consider endorsing one or a few of their skills and if you’d really like to show your support, write a personal recommendation. These are all ways to ensure your profile stays active and relevant.

3. Share Original Content

Once you feel comfortable with the size and engagement of your network, it’s time to start
sharing original content. The best way to share your ideas is with LinkedIn’s publisher feature. Don’t focus on the length so much as the content on the page. Write about topics you have first hand experience in and do your best to provide real world value that can be applied by anyone who has the drive. Adapt your content overtime as you may notice that some topics tend to be more popular than others. Interviewing a colleague or friend is a great place to start if you can’t come up with any unique ideas to write about. If you already have some writing experience, you can use these posts to showcase your knowledge, expertise or unique skills, all of which will show well to your network.

In a world where “who knows you” is often more important than “who you know” growing and enriching your LinkedIn network can take you a long way professionally. With a few simple steps, you’ll see your network grow exponentially and over time the engagement will increase and the possibilities for the future will be endless.

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.”
– Jeff Bezos

Optimize your Marketing Strategy with this Free Web Tool

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marketing strategyAlthough the entry barrier to online businesses such as e-commerce is lower than for their offline equivalents, making a success of your enterprise is far from guaranteed.

Fortunately, there are countless web tools that you can use to help you get your business where you want it to be. Not all of these tools come cheap though, which can be off-putting for a fledgling project unsure of how much they can afford to spend on something that might prove unnecessary.

Thanks to the people behind our favourite search engine however, one of the most powerful tools available to help you optimize your marketing strategy is completely free.

Google Analytics is available to everyone, easy to set up, and gives you insights into where your traffic is coming from and what they are doing once they arrive, helping you to study the following data and make the tweaks that will improve your conversion rates.

Preferable referrals

Google Analytics allows you to see where your traffic is coming from, including those being sent there by way of referrals. This category tells you which websites are directing traffic back to your website, how much they are sending, and what it’s doing when it’s there.

If you’re paying for any online advertising as part of your marketing strategy, perhaps from the big yellow book company or other directory sites, this data can help you decide if this is money well spent or not.

If after analyzing your referral traffic you feel the amount is too low, or that the bounce rate is too high, you may want to consider dropping some of the referral services you are currently not getting value for money from and concentrating on the ones that you are.

Social engagements

Getting the most out of social media is a key part of any good marketing strategy, and Google Analytics can help you see how well your own efforts are faring.

By looking at the statistics in the Social tab, you will find exactly which of the various platforms you’re posting on are performing well, and which aren’t.

Are you getting more traffic from Twitter than from Facebook? Does your traffic from Instagram stick around longer than those who came from Pinterest? Do those coming from Google+ or LinkedIn look at more pages? Who makes the most comments? Who bounces?

And now that you know, what are you going to do with the information? Will you concentrate more on those who already perform well, or try to bring the others up to speed too?

The choice is yours, but at least now you have the data to help you decide.

Content with your content?

If you’re regularly paying for or writing your own blog posts, producing videos, creating infographics, or any other type of content as part of your marketing strategy, it needs to be hitting its intended mark if you’re to be successful.

Another way of using Google Analytics to help optimize your marketing strategy is to learn what type of content really resonates with your visitors and what leaves them unimpressed.

By measuring what content people like, by noting how long they’re spending on the different types and how often people bounce from them, you can get an idea of what topics people are interested in, whether videos are adding value to your marketing strategy, or if the time spent creating infographics is worth it.

As a free tool, Google Analytics provides priceless insights into the behaviour of your web traffic, helping you to optimize your marketing strategy by understanding where your audience is coming from, how effective your social media is, and what type of content you should concentrate on going forward.

To learn more about Google Analytics, watch our Youtube channel here:

3 Simple Ways to Help your Blog be Found and Read

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digital marketing blogThe societal shift towards instant gratification in our media has completely altered the way we think about producing and digesting the written word, with online blogs in particular being a major force in the changing habits of both writers and readers.

When people say they want to read an epic blog post, they’re no longer talking about the length. As sad as it might sound to those with dreams of grandeur, unless you are a specially talented wordsmith or raconteur, the 2000 word wall of text you wrote for your digital marketing blog is unlikely to engage many people.

People want quick fixes of pleasure to get them through the gruelling fifteen minute bus commute to work, lists of easily digestible facts that go well with a coffee, and bite-sized nuggets of information they can devour with their fries on their lunch break.

If you’re regularly producing content for your digital marketing blog but finding the amount of either traffic or interaction is lower than you’d hoped, it might be time to rethink what you thought you knew about your desired audience.

Plan for the scan

The first thing to understand when producing content for your digital marketing blog is that even those who read it probably don’t really read it. When digesting web content, people scan, and the way your blog posts are formatted will be a bigger factor in people reading and interacting with them than even the content itself.

Because your digital marketing blog may live or die by the format, it has to be clear. We all know the importance of a good headline, but subheadings are just as vital in breaking up your topics into easier to swallow chunks, and even helping the reader to decide if they can skip to the next paragraph.

Using keywords in the subheadings is a very good idea too. Not only does it help with SEO, but it will also reinforce the relevance of the article to your reader’s interest if they have found it through an organic search.

To boldly go

To help the reader of your digital marketing blog pick out the information they are looking for, making bold the key points will cause them to jump out from the page.

Using this technique benefits yourself as much as it does your audience. While you may like to think they care about every line in your posts as much as you do, and want to spend time taking everything in, they probably don’t.

So while guiding them to the parts they want to see and showing them what to skip over by making bold the important points might sound counterintuitive for those wanting all of their content to be read, your reader is actually more likely to read more of your other digital marketing blog posts if you’re making it easier for them to find and digest the information.

Words and pictures

Whether images or video, using multimedia in your blog posts is vital to stimulating your reader into taking the action you want them to take.

As well as providing a break from the words, and being another effective way of breaking up the wall of text, images and video can get across messages in a way plain text never can.

The important thing to remember is to keyword your multimedia, usually by renaming the file before uploading, to give your digital marketing blog another chance to be found on Google.

People are increasingly going straight to Image searches to find what they are looking for, but your multimedia will not show in the results if it still has a generic, alphanumeric title.

Because most people scan articles on the internet rather than reading them, making your digital marketing blog easier to digest by breaking up the wall of text with key worded multimedia, subheadings, and with the important points made bold is vital in allowing your audience to find you, and in keeping them coming back.

 

For a look at our One Minute Tips and more on this topic, check out our Youtube page here:

Tweet like a Rock Star – 3 tips for easy Twitter Marketing

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marketing campaignSince its genesis in 2006, Twitter has become a global stage that anyone can step onto, grab the mic, and sing to their own audience. Thanks to the potential for easily reaching such a wide array of fans, it has become an integral part of most small business marketing campaigns today.

The only problem is, with so many voices vying to be heard, how can you make sure you don’t become just another brick in the wall?

Being middle-of-the-road means getting drowned in sound, your voice left unheard along with anyone else who only seems to sing for themselves. If you want to get noticed, you have to leave the world of MOR, and concentrate on leaving people wanting MOAR.

This means escaping the road to nowhere and learning how to tweet like a rock star. By following these three simple tips for your Twitter marketing campaign, you’ll soon be well on the way to headlining your own gigs.

Plan your setlist

The best rock concerts are the ones where it seems anything can happen. Of course though, the band do know exactly which songs to play and in what order to hold the show together.

In much the same way, the tweets you send out as part of your marketing campaign can be prepared, put down into a list, and scheduled to automatically go out in sequence and at specific times.

By using a service such as Buffer or Hootsuite, you can easily schedule a whole list of tweets that will be sent out whenever you choose. The benefits of this are twofold, giving you more free time by allowing you to schedule all of your tweets for the week ahead in one session, while also ensuring they are sent out at optimal times, when more people will see them.

Collaborate with your peers

Going solo is a career move that has worked for many rock stars, but doing so on Twitter is one of the worst strategies for your marketing campaign.

Giving a shout out to people, be they your fans or people in the same industry, will make them like you a whole lot more as they appreciate the effort you put into acknowledging or promoting their content too.

Every time you mention somebody or re-tweet their post, they’ll receive a notification, which gives you a chance of being mentioned or re-tweeted in return, with the latter being a big deal if they are a bigger influencer or have a wider audience than yourself.

Perhaps more importantly than receiving reciprocal Twitter activity however is the fact that by appearing in their notifications, you are keeping yourself at the forefront of their minds, which is the best place to be for your marketing campaign.

Hold live shows

As recently as a few weeks ago, Twitter acquired and launched Periscope, a live streaming video app that is looking to add a major string to the social media giant’s already impressive bow.

Downloading and installing the app will allow users to stream and view live videos on their Twitter profiles, increasing the options for creative new ways to bring your marketing campaign to your growing audience.

The live streams also take up more screen real estate than text-only tweets and engage the user for longer than a single image will, helping your content and name to stick in the mind for longer.

For a marketing campaign to have the desired results, standing out from the crowd on Twitter is a must. By following these three tips, you’ll open the doors to tweeting like the rock star you’ve always wanted to be.

The Essential Social Media Camp Attendees Checklist

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Whether this is your first time attending Social media camp, or your 6th, here’s a handy checklist to help you make the most of your time at camp.

Before Social Media Camp

Plan your itinerary:

This is North America’s biggest social media conference offering 60 speakers in just 3 days, with many concurrent sessions in one of three main salons, as well as other events offsite and in smaller rooms.

If you haven’t already, check out the schedule of events before hand on the social media camp website interactive scheduler where you can plan your attack- and save the  sessions and workshops you plan to attend.

If you’re looking for coaching, be sure to sign up now as spots are limited

For activities outside the conference, be sure to follow Social Media Camp on Twitter as there are many vendors offering discounts to attendees on anything from whale watching to hotel rooms.

It may also be wise to consider your objectives and intentions for attending- what do you hope to come away with and how can you best achieve that objective?

Connect:

Before during and after social media camp, there are many opportunities to connect with speakers, attendees and sponsors alike.

Join in on the conversation through the hashtag #smcamp and reach out to people you’d like to connect with in person at the event.

In the scheduling tool on the Social Media Camp website, you can see who is planning on attending which session and connect with them, of course, on social media.

You can also do a bit of research on the speakers you’re particularly interested in and connect with them on their topic before the conference.

There are also several launch & post events that occur alongside the evening wrap-up at the pub up the street. Be sure to attend some of these more informal gatherings and have some fun while meeting new people.

What to bring:

  1. Great attitude: Don’t be afraid to say hello to the person sitting next to you or approach your favourite speaker!
  2. Water Bottle: Like any day at camp you’re going to want to stay hydrated, so bring a refillable water bottle.
  3. Coffee Mug (optional): Coffee is usually supplied in the mornings, but if you’re like me and drink the stuff all day, bring your own travel mug and get refills at the coffee shop next door.
  4. Battery pack: there can be fierce competition for power outlets, and you’re not going to want to have a dead device, so bring extra battery power.
  5. Business cards: This is such a wonderful opportunity to look up from your phone and meet people in person, don’t forget to bring your business cards to maximize your networking effectiveness.
  6. Cash & a Pen: There may be books for sale by the speakers, so if you want a signed copy, bring cash for purchase and a pen for autographs.
  7. Note taking supplies: Whether you prefer pen to paper or digital note taking, you’ll want to take notes to get maximum value out of your experience.

(Many of the sessions are wonderfully illustrated in real time, real life INFOGRAPHIC style by several talented artists who do a great job of summarizing each talk’s main points.

However, not all sessions are illustrated so don’t rely on the artists to take notes for you at all sessions.)

This checklist is based on my experience of 2 years of attendance- was there anything I missed? Let me know if I did!

You can tell me by connecting with me on social media , in the comments below, or in person after my presentation- Socialin17 – I am looking forward to seeing you there!

3 Reasons Your Business Needs A Mobile Friendly Website

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mobile content marketingThe sight of commuters on the train, coffee drinkers in the cafe, or employees on their lunch break engrossed in their smartphones or tablets has become ubiquitous through recent years, and is a social trend that should force business owners everywhere to take their mobile content marketing seriously.

However, the single most important aspect for any business with aspirations of engaging with a mobile audience is to have a mobile friendly website that seamlessly resizes all the content to fit whatever screen it is being viewed on.

Not only are those that don’t seen as outdated by visitors, they will also find their Google rankings suffer on mobile searches too. As the internet goes mobile, failing to adapt means being left behind, and all the mobile content marketing in the world won’t help if your website is stuck in the dark ages.

What follows is why your business needs a mobile friendly website.

A mobile friendly public

The days when laptop or desktop internet usage accounted for the majority of time spent online are over, with the tipping point for mobile usage surpassing browsing on more static machines coming in early 2015.

Put simply, more people are using their phones and tablets to browse the internet than are using laptops and computers, and they expect your website to work on their devices.

Responsive websites take all of your content, be that copy or images, sliders, or even products for sale, and automatically resize it to fit the screen it is being viewed on, while menus too are adjusted to enable the user to easily navigate your site.

In truth, the average mobile device user now takes this for granted, and will only notice when it doesn’t happen, at which point they will most likely leave even your best mobile content marketing efforts unread and go elsewhere.

While the obvious benefit here is to the user with the site becoming easier and more enjoyable to navigate than the full web version when viewed on a mobile device, there is a certain search engine giant who will also like your new responsive website more than your old one.

Google responds to responsive

On April 21st, 2015, Google launched a brand new mobile algorithm that rewards responsive sites in their mobile search results.

Those searching for products and services on Google using their mobile device will get results that take into account which sites are mobile friendly, with those that aren’t finding themselves omitted from the search, no matter how good their mobile content marketing.

Google’s new algorithm looks to see whether a site’s text is readable without zooming, if the content is sized so no horizontal scrolling is required, and that links are far enough apart that the correct one can easily be tapped; all criteria that a responsive website should have no fear of fulfilling.

If you want to be rewarded for your mobile content marketing efforts, you will now need a mobile friendly website to rank in mobile Google searches.

Adjusting to fit your market

If you needed any more convincing of the need for a mobile friendly, responsive website for your business, take a look at your competitors.

The chances are they have already made the shift, meaning they have a massive advantage over you when it comes to reaching the ever growing mobile internet user demographic.

As well as providing a better user experience and being more visible on mobile Google searches, your competitors will also be saving time and money behind the scenes that can be put to use in their mobile content marketing campaign.

Before the advent of responsive design, site owners had the option of providing a mobile version of their site, although this meant paying for, maintaining, and constantly updating two separate versions of the same site. If you are still doing this, a responsive website will eliminate the need, allowing you to maintain one version of your site that will function perfectly on any device.

With more people browsing and buying on mobile devices than desktop or laptop, Google rewarding mobile friendly devices to such a degree that those without the functionality are excluded from mobile search results, and your competitors most probably already on the mobile friendly website train, can you and your mobile content marketing afford not to join them?

Check out our One minute tip on Mobile Marketing on Youtube here:

So your website has been hacked- now what? + a guide to preventing the worst case.

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Getting hacked seems like an improbable occurrence, especially for a small or micro sized local businesses.

However, in 10 years or so in this industry, I have seen it happen to a handful of Calgary and area small and medium sized business.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

What does being hacked look like?

In one case, the website was replaced by a merry, if not loudly playing song and a cartoon that said “You’ve been hacked from Tunisia.” This was the least serious of the cases.

In another case, the website had a hidden page that was selling generic pharmaceutical products, to which the large pharma company’s trademark enforcement team responded with a serious legal letter requesting a cease and desist. We had less than 5 days to remove the code or face the consequences.

In still another case, the website became blocked by Google for having malicious content, which seriously hurt the company’s credibility, not to mention the lost traffic and stain in Google’s eyes.

In still other, more common cases, email accounts have been suspended for a day or two for sending spam, unbeknownst to the account owner.

What can I do to avoid being hacked?

Have a good password:

Although they’re absolutely harder to remember, a good password should have one uppercase character, a special character and ideally not contain any entire words. Good passwords should be hard to guess and be at least 8 characters.

Change your passwords:

Passwords should also be changed regularly, at least every few months.

You should change your email password, your administrative login password and your FTP password.

Update your website’s version and any plugins:

Because of the lack of perceived value or understanding around why updating versions of your platform and plugins are so important, many businesses don’t allocate a budget- until it’s too late.

If you have a Content management system, like wordpress, joomla or drupal, you need to regularly update your website version as well as plugin versions to avoid being compromised.

If your website is like so many, and is built using open source software like wordpress, there are new versions being released regularly. These updates are intended to fix bugs and protect against vulnerabilities that could lead to being hacked or viruses.

This follows the same logic as the updates released by your browser or the operating system on your phone.

There is actually a hidden war between hackers and technology providers going on beneath our noses. Each update is intended to provide more security and is quickly compromised.

This post isn’t intended to scare you, but to let you know that being hacked is more common than you think.

I hope this post has been informative and convinced you to put security measures in place proactively instead of reactively.