Video Marketing | Small Business Tips

5 Creative Video Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Videos are the most engaging form of content on the web, and they’re not just for big companies anymore. Convey your small business’s message through video and your audience will be sure to hit the "play" button.

Let’s face it: attention spans are short these days. People are bombarded with content every second of every day and don’t have the time or patience to read a long article. Add to that the difficulty text posts have standing out in a crowded feed of funny and interesting videos - it can be hard to connect with people.

That’s why videos are so important for your business; not only are they easy to consume, but they’re fun to watch and people love them. Videos are becoming the most effective way to engage users and drive traffic to your website. In fact, according to statistics, by 2019, 80 percent of all internet traffic will come from video.

As a small business owner, you might be under the impression that only million-dollar companies can create high-quality, entertaining marketing videos; but that’s no longer true. You too can create amazing videos that users will eat up on social media and the web. You don’t need a videographer or any fancy, expensive equipment; all you need is your smartphone or a computer.

Ready to grow traffic, increase engagement and boost conversions for your business with video? Check out these five creative video marketing tips for small businesses.

1. Repurpose blog posts into videos

Don't worry about coming up with fresh, new video marketing ideas. You don’t have to start from scratch. Repurposing your most popular blog posts into videos is a great way to reach new audiences and recycle content that you already know performs well. By repurposing your written content into videos, users who have previously passed on your blog posts can be pulled in with a format they prefer more - video.

You can use a tool like Lumen5 to easily transform your articles into videos. Lumen5 uses artificial intelligence to automate video creation; all you have to do is enter a blog post or RSS feed, and the software will help you summarize the content and match scenes with relevant videos, photos and music. You can even customize all your videos with your branding, making it an effective way to attract new audience members and introduce them to your business.

2. Put a video on your landing page

Videos can increase your traffic and engagement, but did you know videos can actually increase your bottom line too? In fact, including a video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80 percent. When you incorporate videos on your landing page, users who visit your site can experience and absorb the message you’re trying to get across with very little effort. It can also increase the number of time visitors spend on your page.

Landing page videos should be high-quality with a great thumbnail, above the fold, and embedded in a stand-alone player such as YouTube or Vimeo. Whether your landing page video is about your company and who you are, customer reviews, or how your products or services work, users can easily understand the value of your company while being entertained, which leaves them much more likely to buy.

3. Use live video to interact with your audience

There’s no better way to connect with your audience than to speak to them directly. Luckily, with the rise of live streaming, you can interact with your audience and customers any time you want. You can go live on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube and receive a ton of engagement that will grow your business.

One great way to use live video is to schedule a Q&A session. Let your audience know when you’re going live so that they can join in and ask questions in real time. Live Q&A sessions are a great way to make your audience feel like they’re a part of something special and to present yourself as an expert in your industry.

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Social Media Marketing | Trends For 2019

The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends Going Into 2019

1. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is already being implemented in small ways, but it’s leaving a significant impact that will last well into the future. In fact, it’s estimated that the augmented reality and virtual reality markets will surpass $298 billion by 2023. The most obvious example are Snapchat’s facial filters.

A handful of them have sponsors in the corner of the screen, and people can create their own geofilters as well. Social media marketing managers can and should, if they’re not already, take advantage of these features that will continue to become more prevalent on other platforms to further their reach while personalizing interactions.

2. Focus on Generation Z

Generation Z is starting to enter the workforce, meaning they have money to spend. Marketers are starting to target the new generation early, which is a smart move. Retail businesses, for example, are offering clothes that are higher end while offering a wider range of styles.

Retailers are also opening pop-up stores and hosting events that offer more intimate, personalized customer experiences, which will continue to be a major business trend for years to come. The reason pop-up stores and events are so popular is that they’re unique and are designed with the intention of being shared on social media. Generation Z was born surrounded by technology, which makes them and social media marketing a natural fit for each other.

3. Video

Video continues to be the dominant medium in social media. Instagram copied Snapchat by creating Instagram Stories, which work in exactly the same way. According to Entrepreneur, 200 million Instagram users use Instagram Stories each month. This makes Instagram a vital focus in your marketing efforts, and one you should give your best effort at. YouTube continues to grow in popularity due to the rise in YouTubers (we’ll get into that more a little later). Generation Z also uses social video platforms like Houseparty, where users can join group video chats and talk to each other online and on the go.

By making their presence known on all these video platforms, social media marketers will have a unique advantage in 2018 because video platforms, again, make it easier to offer personalized customer experiences, which is what customers — regardless of generation — want from businesses. People are visual learners by nature, and video goes beyond what pictures offer. Businesses are realizing this, realizing the popularity of video channels, and realizing the versatility of video.

4. Messenger Apps and Chatbots

Like video, messenger apps offer customers another channel to reach out to businesses and vice versa. We all know how popular Facebook Messenger is and how easy it is for people to reach out to each other without leaving Facebook. This is important because customers who are on Facebook aren’t always on it with the intention of buying a product.

If a customer does, however, land on a business page and see something they’re interested in, marketers can reach out to them via chatbot and initiate a conversation that could ultimately lead to a sale the customer never saw coming. This is a great way to increase engagement throughout the customer journey. Businesses can reach out on Messenger, WhatsApp, and Kik, which are all popular messaging apps Millennials and gen Z’ers are using regularly.

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How to Be a Leader | Daymond John

Local SEO | Small Business Marketing

5 Simple Tips to Improving Local SEO for Your Small Business

Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website and marketing your business online, so it ranks better on Google for your local audience. For business owners that rely on people physically visiting their storefronts, improving your local SEO will result in more foot traffic through your doors. In fact, local searches lead 50 percent of mobile users to visit stores within one day.

So if you want your business to become a local sensation, check out these five simple tips for improving local SEO for your small business.

1. Create a Google My Business account.

One of the simplest ways to get your business in front of locals who’re searching the web is to create a Google My Business (GMB) account.

When someone searches for a local pizza restaurant, for instance, GMB will display your address, phone number, hours of operations, photos of your food and restaurant, and all the other info you entered into your account. By giving this information to Google, your business will be more likely to be mentioned in Google’s Local 3-Pack, which is the top three local listings that show up on mobile results.

Creating a Google My Business account will also help you get found in other search features like Google Maps. Not only will you be more easily discovered with a GMB account, but you’re also much easier to contact which increases the chances of locals giving you a call to make an order or stopping by your shop to buy.

2. Create local business profiles.

Have you ever googled a business and found almost nothing about them on the web, no photos, reviews, etc.? If that’s happened to you, you probably never visited that business – you chose a business with more social proof instead.

Boost your online presence and improve your local SEO by creating local business profiles on popular search-and-discovery sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, and Foursquare. Each profile you create is another platform for users to land on when they search online and you want to give consumers as many opportunities to find your business as you can, so claiming your business and optimizing your profile on many different sites is must.

Don’t forget to also look for any local online directories, or even your city’s website, to find local options where you can list your business information and link back to your website. Creating these business profiles will build your social proof, making consumers more inclined to check you out.

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SEO Strategy | SEO Tips

Try These Three SEO Strategies For Best Results

1. Technical optimizations – can the search engine read your site and would a user have a good user experience on it?

In order for a user to have a good experience on your site, and for the search engine to know what the site is even about, your technical SEO has to be solid. Having clean code, optimized images and tags, proper indexation and sitemaps, is key for the search engines to be able to “read” it properly. Decent page speed is a must to avoid constant impatient bounces - a big red flag. The tags on-site are not just there to be stuffed with keywords, but to allow the search engines to understand what your site contains, and what information it provides to a user. These are the basics of SEO, but they will always be an extremely important foundation to build any sort of organic visibility.

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Social Media Tips | Instagram

10 Instagram Accounts Entrepreneurs Should Follow

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Social Media Tips | Social Media Marketing

15 Simple tips to Spring Clean your social media pages

Spring has sprung and it’s as good a time as any to freshen up your social media pages. Because they play an important part in shaping your business’s image and attracting potential clients, it’s essential that they not be outdated or lacking in informative content and visually-appealing imagery.

Here are 15 simple tips to take your business’s social media pages into the new season.

1. Change the passwords to each account, especially if they’ve been the same for a while now. According to psafe.com, leaders in mobile security, you should change the passwords of your important accounts at least once to twice a year.
2. As an added measure of security, review the apps which have permission to access your pageand revoke access to those you no longer use.
3. Update each page’s profile picture with your current logo. This should be in a square format so that no important elements are cropped out the thumbnail.
4. Update Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn cover photos. This is an area where you can let your brand personality shine through by uploading a happy photo of your staff or a themed image that aligns with your upcoming content.
5. Ensure brand consistencyby using the same profile picture and cover photo across all pages. Note that the header images will need to be adjusted slightly to suit each social media network’s recommended image dimensions.
6. Update each page’s bioto include as much information on your business as possible. On Instagram specifically, you can now include hashtags within your bio to further increase your chances of being found by a relevant audience.
7. Review each page’s business informationto ensure that it includes the correct operating hours, contact and address details - especially if your business is open to walk-in customers.
8. Check all website linksto ensure that your followers are being directed to the correct website/s. Also pay special attention to your Facebook vanity URL, and edit this if need be to help people find your business page more easily.
9. If you haven’t already done so, share your business story in Facebook’s “Our Story” section. This is an added opportunity to give your audience insight into your business’s history, vision, values, products and services.
10. Haven’t got around to creating custom templates for your social media images? Then now’s the perfect time to create new social media image template/sto ensure that your timeline has a clean and consistent look.

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