Circle City Marketing

How To Use Social Media To Brand Your Business

2011-06-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

How To Use Social Media To Own Your Brand In Search Engines

When you do a search for your business name, how many pages appearing in the Top 10 of Google do you directly control?

Effectively controlling the Top 10 listing in Google can help convert more customers, as many people use search engines to learn more about your company. The more pages that you control means that you can direct the flow of information.

An effective way to do this is through the use of social media. Each social media site that you are registered on is one more page that you control, that is tied to your company.

Unless your company name is very common, having these pages appear when a customer searches for the business shouldn't take too long.

Create pages for your company on different social media sites

With such a large number of social media sites available, you can choose ones that will reflect your company best, and fit in with the amount of time you have to spend on your social media efforts.

For example; Twitter is great for short, regular updates, Linkedin will be aimed at a more professional market, Facebook can give you business a personal feel, whilst MySpace can be targeted towards the younger demographic.

Try to include as much information as you can regarding the company, products and services, and try to make it as appealing to potential customers as possible.

Remember that as a social media site, you will need to update it to keep it relevant, so if you don't have time to write blog articles, stick to sites that require less lengthy input.

If you can only update at irregular intervals, avoid sites that rely on regular updates, such as twitter.

Create Links to your social media pages

Once you've created your social media pages, and have done as much optimization as possible, you'll need to start pushing it up the rankings. This can be done through the use of backlinks.

There are a few different ways you can create backlinks to your pages, such as linking to your pages when you write blogs, linking to them of your main website, or having them as a footer when you leave comments on forums etc.

These sites won't shoot up into the Top 10 straight away, but as they do climb up the rankings, it will allow you to control the flow of information to potential customers more and more.

With the ease of access to information, dominating the Google listings for your own brand name will allow your potential customers to gain a better understanding of your business and stay top of mind - 2 key ingredients in converting an online customer!

By Rene LeMerle
Expert Author
Article Date: 2011-06-08

Promote Your Community and Increase Your Business

2010-01-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Notice how many successful businesses in your town support charities. It costs less than you think to help out a non-profit group and the promotional payoff can be huge. Plus, there are lots of worthy projects in your area that could really use a helping hand.

All year round organizations are looking for help, whether it be financial or a gift or your time or service.

Getting Started
NOW is the time to start talking with a good non-profit. Contact their director and ask how your business can help. In most cases you can dedicate a small percentage of your sales to the charity. Non-profits will be ready and willing to include your name in their advertising and marketing campaigns. Have a logo, flier, short ad copy, or web site banner for them to use. Make yourself available to join charity representatives on radio/ tv talk shows and Internet chats.

There are so many worthy organizations that it is often hard to chose which one to help. If you don't already have a favorite, pick one that relates to your business in some way. If you sell children's clothing, working with a charity that helps underprivileged kids at Christmas would be a good match. Some charities are better equipped to work with sponsors and the media. Others are new, have inexperienced staff, and may appreciate your business experience in showing them how to organize people and resources.

Most non profits need publicity, money and volunteers, and your partnership can provide all of that. Just remember you are doing the work to benefit the charity not burden them.

The Benefits To You
Most people don't buy the item with the lowest price. Customers highly value service and image. By involving your business with a non-profit doing important work, you get the notice and respect of thousands of people who otherwise might not know about you. Note how many major newspapers and television stations are promoting charities this time of year. Their audience and advertisers appreciate when media works to improve the community. Your customers and prospects will feel the same about you.

As an added bonus, business, political, and community leaders are often heavily involved with charities. The people you meet can form a valuable network of contacts for future projects and business.

Don't Be Too Commercial
As a friend of mine often says "Do good and success will follow." It's easy to get carried away trying to promote the sponsor's interests in a non-profit campaign. If it appears that sponsors are being promoted more than the work of the charity, the whole thing can backfire. Sponsors who stay discreetly in the background receive more benefit in the end.

The key to this marketing strategy is to remember to keep your community first and not worry about what you are getting. If you are only thinking about yourself, just go advertise, this is not the plan for you.

Ensuring Success
Focus on how you can help make things easy for consumers. Ease of participation is often what separates success from failure. Try to solve the problems a potential donor may have such as no time to write a check and mail it in, no extra money available, and fear their donation may not reach the right people.

Promote Hard
Lots of worthy non-profits are shouting their messages this time of year. Even though you are a sponsoring business, you may find yourself helping out on the publicity end. Use every available marketing and publicity option. It takes lots of repetition to have an impact. A well-written press release will interest editors and producers. Many email newsletters are good about donating no-cost ad space for charities. Radio, TV, and newspapers will often give you free time and space if you have a cause or event their audiences will be interested in.

Also think how you might be able to continue your association with a charity year after year. Those who don't notice you this year will be twice as aware the second time you participate. Many of the most successful business-charity associations have been going on for decades.

There's no question your business helps others by providing valuable products, services, and ideas. You'll multiply the good feeling when you lend a hand to a non- profit charity.

Resources:
www.pe.com
www.innercirclecorona.com
www.incorona.com
www.CoronaChamber.org

Charities to Help:
www.Communityandfamily.org
www.OurLocalFight.org
www.circleofhopecorona.org
www.circlecityrotary.com
www.inspirelifeskills.org

Two Thousand and Ten Digital Marketing Outlook

2010-01-26T18:27:00.000-08:00

Two Thousand and Ten Digital Marketing Outlook

Harness the Benefits of the Real-Time Market research is easier than ever--stay on top of news and trends with these tools:

2010-01-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

There has been much written about real-time web startups to highlight the multitude of companies and energy that have entered the space. In addition, there has been much talk in regards to the real-time web tools that are available for web developers.

Here's an overview of the real-time web from the user experience perspective through discussing several of the things users can do on the real-time web.

Search
To search the real-time web in its purest form, you can head to Twitter's homepage. On Twitter's homepage, you can enter in whatever you'd like and instantly see the most recent chatter in regards to that topic. The most recent results will be sorted at the top of the search results. If you want to just see the links that are being posted on the real-time web, you can visit Topsy's link search. Topsy will allow you to see the most popular links of the past hour, day, week or year. If you'd like to see both real-time content and links broken out at the same place, my company Sency.com displays this information on its site via its two tabbed result pages.

Content Continues Below

Related Information
A lot of times it is interesting to learn which terms on the real-time web are related to a respective term. For example, you may be interested to learn the top 10 terms being used alongside the keyword basketball right now. Tweet Cloud can do this for you if you go to their site and search for a term, you can see the terms most used along side any given keyword in large fonts. You will also notice keywords in smaller font which means they are used alongside the keyword but not as often.

The Latest Trends
One of the great things about the real-time web is to learn what topics are being talked about the most right now. What The Trend is an outstanding resource which not only shows you the hottest trends but also gives you information as to why a trend is hot. Each trend has a description that has been recently written by a user similar to how Wikipedia gets information from users on a variety of topics. Sency has recently published The Top 100 which shows you 100 topics that have been talked about over the past few days.

Retweet
Retweets became famous on Twitter--as it is the process of taking someone else's Twitter update and posting it to your Twitter page. Daily RT has done at excellent job at summarizing the most popular retweets on the web. The more you get retweeted, the more influence you probably have--and down the right hand side of Daily RT you can see a real-time stream of Tweets posted by the most retweeted users on the web. By viewing only retweets, you are more likely to get quality information as a retweet by a user is similar to having a user vote or vouch for what you said.

The real-time web is new and hot right now. And traditional search engines continue to be very useful for a variety of searches. However, as the web is moving more real-time, with users updating constantly, these real-time tools will help you to utilize the real-time web effectively and efficiently.

Evan Britton founded Sency in 2009. The goal of Sency is to bring real-time content, links, and tools, to internet users in an organized and simple fashion.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketresearch/article204808.html

Refocus for 2009

2009-01-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Start this year off right – revisit your goals, set new targets, and create a plan to grow your business. Here’s a reminder of the ways you can improve your existing services, grow your capabilities, and creating meaningful customer relationships in 2009.

Stay in touch with potential customers.
Follow-up is critical at all times, but especially during the sales process. Work hard to sell the quality of your work and service and communicate effectively and you’ll win more jobs. Stay on top of every proposal and respond quickly to questions or request for samples.

Build and reinforce existing relationships.
No matter how long you’ve worked with a client, be sure to continually delight them so you can count on their business in the future. Make a consistent effort to push yourself outside your comfort zone. When you talk to an existing client, remind them of other services they could take advantage of. Offer suggestions to help improve their business. Their growth could help fuel your growth. Never be complacent – right now another provider is considering ways to win your customers’ business.

Create comprehensive proposals.
Price is only one consideration for a client. Differentiate your proposals by offering competitive terms, milestones, or schedules. Make sure you include provisions that truly matter to prospective customers.

Focus on excellence.
How can you provide better service? How can you communicate better with clients? What sets you apart from competitors? How do your customers see you? Take a minute and ask yourself the tough questions.

Expand or shift to provide services where less competition exists.
Take the time to review job postings in other service areas and check out Skills Central for trends. If you find an under served market, go for it! While you or your team may need to learn new skills, the effort could be well worth it.

Bid outside your “normal” customer profile.
You may typically submit proposals for established companies; but try bidding on smaller jobs to build relationships with new clients. Revisit what you haven’t done or have purposely decided not to do in the past. New business relationships take time to develop – so get started now.

Develop a long-term plan.
Focus on delivering a quality service today, but also take the time to plan for at least the next two years. Revisit your marketing business plans. Evaluate where your business is today, identify short and long-term goals, and put a plan in motion to achieve those goals. Create an action plan that will help your business grow and prosper during almost any economic climate.

In short, don’t just focus on what you currently do. Also think about what people need – and make sure you can provide it. If you do, your business will grow and prosper in 2009 and beyond!

Welcome to Circle City Marketing

2008-09-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Circle City Marketing... Located in the heart of Corona CA.
Professional Web Design, Marketing Consulting, Graphic Design and Printing.

370 W Grand, Suite 102
Corona, CA 92882