5 Ways to Sell With Social Media

Do you want to convert your fans and followers into paying customers?

Are your social activities working?

In this article I’ll show you 5 simple ways to tweak your social media updates for better sales conversion.

Some social media updates can go further toward bringing in sales than others. And they can do this without detracting from the spirit of social media.

Some social media updates can help with sales more than others. Image source: iStockPhoto.

#1: Incorporate a Clear Call to Action

Your customers and fans visit your social media pages for a variety of reasons, but generally speaking, they want to do something or learn something.

Some people are looking for information about your company, some are looking for details about products and services, some want access to special deals and coupons, some want to see if you have any contests or promotions running and some may be looking for expert tips and how-to tricks.

If you don’t give them what they’re after, they won’t return. Use status updates to give them what they want and what you want: a sale.

Post calls to action like “Click here for a Facebook fan exclusive coupon,” or “Enter to win…”

Here you see how Target offers daily deals on Twitter.


Target has a Twitter account where followers can see deals the retailer has in stores.

But remember to stay true to the 70-20-10 rule: 70 percent of your page’s content should be information that’s valuable and relevant to your fans; 20 percent should be content that comes from other people and 10 percent should be promotional.

Once you know why your audience wants to interact with you on social media, be sure to give them the types of information they’re looking for.

#2: Convey a Sense of Urgency

Due to the ticker-tape nature of most social media platforms, you have a very limited amount of time to catch the attention of your customers/fans/followers. If they see an update with verbiage that compels them to “act now,” you win.

Using words like “For a limited time” or “On sale this week” or “Own it first” will catch the eye of your visitors.

You can also offer incentives for booking or buying immediately instead of later. Depending on your business, you could waive shipping fees, offer an extra week of your service or even a buy-one/get-one, etc. Ideally, post different time-sensitive offers on different networks.

For example, “The next 10 people who retweet this will receive 10% off their next purchase.” On Facebook you could use an app to make an offer like, “The first 10 people to share this on Facebook get $25 off a $50 purchase,” and so on.

Here, Chili’s uses their Facebook cover photo to connect and offer a deal.


Chili's uses their cover photo to announce a limited-time offer.

This is one way to use the instant nature of social media to your advantage.

#3: Offer Followers and Fans Exclusive Deals

This idea is similar to the previous one, but you want to make sure that your fans know the deals you’re offering are for fans of a particular network only.

To grow your following on a variety of networks and inspire loyalty, offer deals that are exclusive to each network.

Kate Spade New York always has something special cookin’ for their Facebook fans. Periodically offering special deals is a great tactic for a business that wants to keep its fans coming back again and again. And doesn’t every business want that?


Kate Spade New York offers Facebook fans exclusive deals and coupons on a regular basis. It keeps them coming back again and again.

This is a great way to reach out to specific audiences within your social media strategy.

#4: Encourage Sharing

It never hurts to ask your fans and followers to retweet, repin or share. Ideally you’re offering such a great deal that your fans and followers will want to share it anyway, but a little nudge is okay.

If your update is about a Facebook contest, you can even let your followers know that if they share the news about your contest, they’ll get an extra chance (or chances) to win.

National Builder Supply uses Pinterest to give fans a chance to win a chandelier.


National Builder Supply gives fans a chance to win a new chandelier by repinning their contest image on Pinterest.

When you ask your audience to interact with your content, they’re more likely to do it.

#5: Keep All of Your Social Media Profiles Current

When potential customers land on your various social pages, they should have a clear idea of what your business/brand is all about. At the very least, go through each of your business’s social profiles (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) once a quarter and make sure all of the information is current, because social networks occasionally change dimensions and other details.

For example, earlier this year Facebook relaxed its rules about using calls to action on cover photos, but many companies haven’t yet updated their pages to make the most of this space.

Tip: You can now include price or purchase information on a Facebook cover photo including phrases like “40% off this week only” or “Download our new eBook here,” contact information or other calls to action such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.” The main image should also give customers and prospective customers some insights about you.

In this image, Trunk Club tells you everything about what they do right on their Pinterest page.


The men's personal shopping service Trunk Club has a fantastic Pinterest profile that tells you everything you need to know about what the company does.

Never forget to give your social media audience the information they need about your business.

Over to You

These are just a few opportunities for you to connect with potential leads for your business. But together with a strategic plan, they can help convert the quality leads your business is looking for.

What do you think? What kinds of posts and updates have you found are the most effective for making a sale? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Images from iStockPhoto.




Author: Jim Belosic
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-updates-for-more-sales/

The Getting Started Guide to LinkedIn Advertising

If you are trying to reach other businesses and professionals, then Advertising on LinkedIn is one to try. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other social advertising platforms, LinkedIn has targeting options so specific that you’ll be able to increase conversions while decreasing costs. In this post, we’re going to look at the essentials of creating a successful advertisement on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Advertising Plan Outline

Before we dive in to details, here is the quick outline of what you will need to execute a successful LinkedIn advertising campaign.

• A LinkedIn account to use LinkedIn advertising. While you don’t need a completed profile or company page if you are linking to your website in your ad, having both are good for your overall online presence.
• A definition of your ideal customer for ad targeting purposes.
• A landing page customized for the product or service you are advertising targeted to your ideal customer.
• An idea of how you want your ad to look by researching other ads on LinkedIn.
• Strong headlines, descriptions, and images for your LinkedIn ad variations.
• Time to review your ad variations to only use the ones with the best conversion rates.
• Time to measure your results to determine if LinkedIn ads are right for your business.

Now, let’s go into specifics!

1. Define Your Ideal Customer

Before you get started with any paid advertising campaign, you need to define your ideal customer. Otherwise, you won’t know who to target your ad to and might wind up spending more money than is necessary to convert with the right audience.

Try to be as specific as possible when defining your ideal customer. What type of company do they work for (technology, retail, restaurant, etc.)? what position are they in (manager, sales, executive, etc.)? Where are they located? and so on.

If you’re not sure about these details, take a look at your current client list and see if they are LinkedIn. Specifically, look at the bottom of company pages to find basic about information…



Then look under the How You’re Connected area to find people from the company that you are connected with.



You can then note job titles, skills, and other important details that might come in handy for your LinkedIn ad targeting.

2. Create One (or More) Landing Pages

Once you’ve defined your ideal customer and determined what you want to advertise to them, make sure you have created landing pages that sell those ideal customers and your advertised product or service.

Some great landing pages to use in your LinkedIn advertising campaign include:

• Pages for specific products or services with emphasis on how they can help your ideal customer.
• Free trial offer pages for your product or service.
• Squeeze pages to build your company’s mailing list by offering free content or discounts.

If you need help with landing pages, be sure to refer to the huge collection of articles here with landing page tips and landing page examples.

Also, if you sell products, you can look at my favorite landing page examples from Shopify. They have over 100 targeted landing pages for a wide variety of businesses including those selling services, construction equipment, and office supplies. Targeted landing pages can help increase conversion rates dramatically.

3. Research Other LinkedIn Ads

If you need a little inspiration, you can find LinkedIn ads while browsing most parts of the site at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.



These ads are shown to you based on information in your professional profile. When you are viewing your main LinkedIn newsfeed, keep scrolling down. As the page shows you older activity from your network, it will also refresh the ads so you can see more than just the first three that match your profile.

As you do this, note which headlines, descriptions, and images stand out most to you. You may even want to click through to see what landing pages the advertiser is using if the ads are similar to what you will be creating.

4. Create Your LinkedIn Ad

Now that you have your ideal customer defined and your targeted landing pages created, you are ready to create your ad. To get started, go to LinkedIn Advertising, sign in with your LinkedIn account, and start a new campaign.



For each campaign, you can create up to 15 ad variations. This can help you test different headline, description, image, and landing page combinations to find the one that works best on your ideal customer. Note that all 15 variations will have the same targeting criteria – you will have to create a new campaign per different targeting profile.

When you put in your landing page, be sure to use UTM parameters to help identify traffic coming to your landing page from your LinkedIn ad. You can use Google’s URL builder to easily create the correct URL structure to identify the ad traffic in your Google Analytics.

5. Target Your Ad

Once you have entered your ad variations, you will then target your ad towards a specific audience. You can target your ad to be shown to people based on location, company industry and size, job title and seniority, school, skills, groups they belong to, gender, and age. As you narrow down your audience, you will be shown an estimate of the audience size.



Be sure to keep targeting your ad to as specific of an audience as possible. The goal isn’t to have a huge potential audience to click on it. The goal is to have a targeted audience who will not only click through, but also convert. This will keep your advertising costs low and conversions high.

6. Set Your Budget

Next, you will set your budget. You can choose a CPC campaign (cost per click) or a CPM campaign (cost per 1,000 impressions).


If the goal is conversions, then you’ll most likely want to choose the CPC option. If the goal is increased visibility for your business, then you’ll most likely want to choose the CPM option.

7. Focus on Successful Variations

If you created multiple variations of your ad, you can visit the LinkedIn ad analytics, click on your campaign, and see the impressions vs. click through rate for each of the variations.



Here, you can toggle off the least successful variations so that your high converting ones are showed prominently. You can also edit each variation in order to keep testing different copy, images, and landing pages to find the combination that delivers the best results.

9. Measure the Results

There are three ways to measure your LinkedIn ad campaign results. The first is by viewing your LinkedIn ad analytics to see the clicks by date range and by campaign.



If you used UTM parameters for Google Analytics, you can see more information about visitor behavior from the ad to your website by looking under Traffic Sources > Sources > Campaigns.



If you don’t use UTM parameters, you can look under Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals to see traffic from the entire LinkedIn network.



Here, you can see the difference in traffic from your ad compared to other areas like your profile, company page, search results, groups, and other LinkedIn areas.

The combination should help you decide if your LinkedIn ads are giving you the results you need compared to other social advertising platforms as well as compared to other activity on LinkedIn.

Do you use LinkedIn advertising? What results have you seen? Please share in the comments!

author: Kristi Hines
http://unbounce.com/social-media/guide-to-linkedin-advertising/

Internet Marketing Tips for Shoestring Budgets

The internet is the most powerful tool there is for promoting businesses–and you can use it even if you’re on a tight budget. With internet marketing, you have the opportunity to promote your products and services to a world-wide audience–in many instances at little or no cost at all. Need some helpful tips to get you started? Check out the following internet marketing tips–ideal for anyone on a shoestring budget.

• Build an Email List

Mass emails are a great way to promote your business because they’re quick, easy, and more often than not–free. Work at building an email list by asking people to sign up to receive newsletters, special offers and promotions, or further information about your business on your website or social media business page. Set daily, weekly, or monthly goals for building your email list–and work hard to achieve those goals by reaching out to potential contacts, sparking their interest in your products and services, and adding their email addresses to your ever-growing list.

• Use Social Media Sites

More and more businesses are using social media sites to market their products and services–and with millions of people on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn at any given moment, it’s no wonder why. Creating business pages on social media sites is quick and easy to do–and you can link it to your own personal page and ask family, friends, and business affiliates to post links to it, too. What will follow is a domino effect of “likes” and “shares” that will expose more and more people to your business page. Be sure to include plenty of good information about your products and services on your page, as well as plenty of pictures or even videos in order to capture your audience’s attention. You may even want to offer a special offer or discount to anyone who “likes” or follows your business page to get them to try or buy whatever it is you’re selling.

• Utilize SEO Marketing Techniques

Increased traffic to your website is crucial when using the internet to market your business–and SEO techniques will give you just that. Incorporating the right keywords into your site’s content repeatedly will put your site at the top in search results, leading more and more people right to your website.

• Leave Links to Your Website

Another internet marketing tip that’s simple and free is to leave links to your website whenever and wherever you have the opportunity. Include a link after your name whenever you guest post, comment, or engage in a conversation on another website or blog, if possible. If you’re going to use this internet marketing technique, it’s important to make sure that the content you post is courteous and professional. If it isn’t, those reading your posts will probably steer clear of your links–resulting in fewer visitors to your site.

• Do Free Giveaways

Almost everyone loves freebies–so why not do an occasional free giveaway in an effort to promote your products or services on the internet? Giving away a free or discounted product or service in exchange for an email address, a “like” on your social media business page, or a referral is an excellent way to get others to find out about your business–and try out whatever it is that you have to offer them. Post giveaway offers in a prominent place on your website, blog, or social media pages so that they get noticed, or send out special offers via email. You might be surprised at the number of people that respond to freebies and discounted offers.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to promote your business on the internet. With so many inexpensive internet marketing options, it can be done even on the tightest shoestring budget. Use these tips if you want the power of the internet on your side–an increase in both traffic and profits will make them worth your time and effort.

source:http://seodesk.org/internet-marketing-tips-for-shoestring-budgets/
author:Dylan Foley

How content creators make money on YouTube

A handful of internet stars turn video views into pay cheques.
Gayathri Vantillu (44) is a homemaker who likes to cook. But unlike others she put her passion for cooking to use. She began uploading home videos of her cooking – shot on a handycam – on video streaming site YouTube. Later, her neighbour’s son also helped her sign up as a partner on YouTube. Three years, 290 videos, 2,000 subscribers and over five million views later, today, Vantillu earns about Rs 40,000 a month from her online cookery channel.

Vantillu could earn money from her videos because she chose to sign up for Google YouTube’s partner programme, which allows content owners to monetise the content via online ads. The now famous Kolaveri video, which got more than four million hits in just about 10 days, did not earn any advertising revenues as the content owner (Sony Music) was not a YouTube Partner.

To sign up for partner programme, content owner needs to contact YouTube and once approved, they can start a small enterprise right on their computers.

QUICK BUCKS FROM ORIGINAL VIDEOS

* YouTube can be used as a publishing platform for original videos that provide entertainment across age groups

* There are two ways of making videos on YouTube. One is by using a real video camera and recording things around you. If you do not want to or if you do not own a camera to record videos, then you could focus on doing things on your computer. This could be anything from how-to videos teaching people how to use programs like Photoshop and so on. These videos are always popular since people find it easy to search for help videos on YouTube if they are stuck with a problem.

* Once the content is ready, you have to drive traffic to your video and that can be done by sharing the video on social networks or asking viewers to share their reviews.

* The site has its own advertising programme, which can be used to monetise videos but content owners need to first become partners. Once accepted as a partner, you will be able to earn money through Google’s AdSense. The minimum payout with AdSense is $100. You will get to use overlay ads at the bottom of the video while it’s running, banner ads next to the video and ads that run before your video does. If you constantly upload videos and get more subscribers, you will create a residual income from all of your videos.

YouTube has been the starting ground for many internet stars, but only a few have been able to turn the video views into pay cheques. With 23 million unique users landing on YouTube, as per comscore data, it’s a huge market place to sell original content.
Another cooking enthusiast, Veena Nair started her channel on YouTube to help bachelors, professionals craving for homemade food or newly-married women across globe. She recently won the “Next Chef” contest on YouTube, bagged $15,000 as prize money, along with professional film-making and editing equipment and a 12-week course that to enhance her cooking and style her video clips.
Online content sharing has been the buzz for quite some time now. Pop artistes and celebrities have been using the medium to interact with fans, and monetise their content through advertisements that appear on the same page. The trend, however, is just emerging in India.

Nair points that from being able to make only instant noodles as a new bride to now teaching people the finer aspects of cooking Italian, continental, Chinese, Thai and Indian cuisine, she has come a long way in the last 18 months. “I wanted to feel confident in the kitchen. Once I picked up tips from friends and family, I thought of helping others in a similar predicament. YouTube provided me with the perfect platform,” notes Nair.
YouTube has broadened its partnership opportunities to include individual video owners along with professional content producers like YashRaj films, UTV, Shemaroo and many more. As a partner, YouTube allows creators to monetise the video and share revenue earned from it. What’s the catch? YouTube partners must create original videos suitable for online streaming, regularly upload content, and give permission to use and monetise all audio and video content uploaded.
The knowledge sharing could be about anything. While cooking and fitness top the list, make-up and style tips, music and video blogging about films and current events are also popular. Basic research, good presentation skills, and regular uploading of content ensures not only subscribers, channel views and strong advertising revenues, but also, sometimes, rewards and recognition.
Raghav Pande, fitness trainer, nutrition specialist and winner of YouTube’s “Next Trainer” contest says, “YouTube as a medium allows me to attract and interact with a wider audience, which was my aim in taking to the internet.” He now has clients from all over the world who visit his website and keep in touch with him for their fitness and nutrition requirements.” His channel on YouTube has garnered more than 2,40,000 views and over 1,200 subscribers in the last couple of years.
It doesn’t take much effort on Pande’s part to maintain the channel. A non-professional cameraman helps him shoot the video over a day or two, which then takes three to four hours to edit. The final clip, running up to 3.5 minutes is then given to YouTube to upload.
If one does not wish to be burdened with the task of production or managing a channel online, there are companies like YoBoHo, which has collaborated with musicians, fitness experts, video bloggers, amateur cooks, among many others to produce content with them and then monetise it. The payment for a single clip can range from anywhere between Rs 300-Rs 1,000 or even more, depending on the channel’s subscriber base, the potential to attract channel views, thereby increasing the advertising revenues.
Hitendra Merchant, CEO of YoBoHo, says understanding the target audience for the video clip is essential. “Building a dedicated subscriber base, providing them with a steady stream of creative, original and communicative content, and keeping them updated about new videos is the key to make it successful here.”
Singer and songwriter, Neha Bhasin who has over 1.2 million views since her channel’s inception in September 2010, ensures that her channel’s home page is an extension of her personality and the brand of music she produces. “Internet audience is very different from TV audience.” On her channel, subscribers know expect more than the regular Bollywood fare, she adds.
Regular uploads of new content is also important in keeping subscribers happy.
Yoga teacher Devidatta Sukhatankar uploads anywhere between one video a day to at least three videos a week on his channel. Maintaining the frequency of uploads has ensured his channel 1.6 million views in the last one year, building his real world clientele as well.
Anuradha Anand Lunavat, a freelance media professional, also attributes the success of her channel to making a lot of videos and keeping the quality of content and production high. “The clip should be short to keep the attention of the viewer from wavering,” she says. “People new to this must have patience and diligently continue to post videos. It takes time to build a fan base, but if your content is good, it will pay off.”

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/how-content-creators-make-moneyyoutube/456848/

Ways to increase Twitter Followers

So that you can make it with twitter it's essential to understand about ways to increase twitter followers to your account, it's extremelly essential to increase followers on twitter since without having them you've nobody to advertise too and if your planning on producing any kind of income online you'll need potential clients or leads. In this article I have supplied a couple of ways to increase your twitter followers.

Prior to you even begin to increase Twitter followers you'll need to think on the Niche you are targeting, believe about a topic area that 'fires' you up and it is possible to get excited about this will be the one that will create the top outcomes and position you as a leader in your field. Once you have established that it will be considerably easier for you to target particular men and women as you start to increase followers on Twitter. Watch the guru's in your location, what are they working on? Do they've any training teaching ways to increse twitter followers specifically something about finding more twitter followers for free? If so study them!! Ray Higdon, for instance, has produced a brilliant free webinar where he teaches a great deal about various ways to increase twitter followers,

Ok so you have your niche, now it's time to be active and involved in conversations, turn out to be a buddy as well as a valuable resource for other users by ensuring your shared content material is easily readable and focused on your target market. If your fully involved inside the conversations it is going to be significantly less complicated for you to discover what precisely your followers need to know more about and target your content material accordingly this will make sure they are going to read and more importantly, share your posts. Make sure your posts are useful, effectively targeted and answer your Twitter followers questions or solve their problems. Folks like to follow individuals who're engaging and offer high quality content material.

If you're marketing and advertising and need to increase followers on Twitter it can be extremelly critical that you remain focused on your specific Niche and don't get sidetracked. Even so, it is perfectly ok to contribute to other conversations on occasion as this may make you more intriguing to follow. Be aware of your followers though, you may loose them if they do not realize some of the conversations you are talking about or worse, in case you start to appear ignorant of the subject location.

Finding more Twitter followers for free and developing a significant list does take time and effort so the best approach to increase followers on Twitter would be to constantly be at the front with the field, initiating conversations and developing a superb solid relationship do not wait for them to make the very first move, not just this other people will see which you are active and will want to follow you. Getting your personal blog is beneficial to assist increase your followers too especially if you have a link inviting men and women to follow you on Twitter.

The most crucial factor is to manage your Tweets properly, one of the best ways to increase Twitter followers would be to strike a superb balance together with your posts based on the Niche and your experience, do not be to extreme in the early days as this can deter individuals from following you.

http://goarticles.com/article/Ways-to-increase-Twitter-Followers/5064022/

New Powerful Twitter Software to Explode Your Profits!! I Love this!!

Almost every twitter  marketer will tell you that you will need to have followers first before getting  any traffic from twitter.
Well, that is very true to average twitter marketers. They follow  other users in twitter and wish to follow them back, and then send offers. That  is a very time consuming process and gives very small result.
I want to introduce you a new twitter tool that rapidly  gaining popularity all over the internet not just because it can do everything you need to succeed in twitter but because of its capability to drive  traffic from twitter to your website even if you have 0  followers.
It's called TweetAttacks, its still new and everyone seems going crazy about it.
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Are you still doing the old way of twitter marketing that  been doing by 99% of twitter marketers?
You've got to try this little wonder and say goodbye to  being average twitter marketer.
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Happy tweeting

What is the Best Way to Make Money Online?

When it comes to the best way to make money online there are hundreds of options that are available to the public. Depending on your interests and skills, there are many different online money making activities that you can take place in. The bottom line is that regardless of what you like to do, the internet will afford you the option to turn it into a way of making money.

One of the best ways to make money online is by taking advantage of the thousands of affiliate programs that are available. These programs are easy to get set up with, and can make you a lot of money if you are persistent. By becoming an affiliate member of a certain company, you will be paid for any visitors or customers that you send to their site. This means that you can set up your own website with affiliate links, and each time you refer a visitor or customer you will get paid. The most important thing to remember about making money with affiliate programs is that you will have to start out slow; nobody will be making thousands of dollars right off the bat. But after you get things rolling and learn about the industry, you will be able to increase your profits.

Another great way to make money online is by setting up your own online store front. Instead of taking the hard route and setting up a retail shop, why not look into starting your own online store? If you can set up a quality shop that sells products that people need, you will be able to see results in no time at all. Keep in mind that you will have to build your business up from scratch. This includes a lot of advertising so that people know that you are available to meet their needs.

There are also a lot of people that make money online by simply filling out surveys. There are thousands of these opportunities available online so you should not have any problems finding one that suits your needs. If you are going to look into this option you should be aware that there are some scams out there. Even though you are not going to get rich off of surveys, it is one of the best ways to make money online.

Making money online is actually a pretty easy thing to accomplish. The reason that it is not difficult to make money online is because there are so many options available. Regardless of what you like to do, you should not have any problems finding an online opportunity that suits your needs. A little bit of research will turn up hundreds of results.