According to research findings in a recent study by Dr. James McQuivey a video that runs for one minute is equivalent to 1.8 million words, yes 1.8 million words! 1.8 million words can comfortably fit in 3,600 web pages! Do you have the strength and time to write this number of words? If you are very fast you would probably be doing one web page in an hour, so it would take you at least 150 days working 24 hours a day to write these many pages.

Looking at it from this angle you realize that video marketing is a practical solution for your online marketing needs.

Let us delve deeper into the numbers to make sense of them. One of the most popular online engagement and use tools suggests that 45.4% Internet users – around the world, view at least one video every month. So what does this mean for your business? It simply means that about 100 million Internet users get to watch an online video every day, which increases the possibility of your message getting to your audience.

Suffice to say that many of the viewers watch the latest viral videos. But a good number of them are also watching videos on how to do things and how to make things work better. It does not come as a surprise that 75% of executives in various industries are watching work related videos online. This is according to a report by Forbes. The executives do this at least once in a week.

65% of the executives who get to watch the videos admitted in the survey that after watching the videos they also visited the marketer’s website, great! What else do you need to convince yourself? The leading provider of online videos is YouTube. More than 50% of the executives watched the videos on YouTube. YouTube should be the first place where you establish your presence.

What is the pay off then? Online video marketing delivers. I believe when you are out marketing your brand you want to leave a lasting impression on your audience. Then what better way to do it than to use online videos? The numbers indicate that 80% of Internet users who watched online videos were able to recall an ad they saw in a video 30 days later! You know what? It gets better, 46% out of the 80% were able to act after watching the advert.

Let us break down the numbers a little bit. 26% of the 80% are people who actually took their time to seek for more information about the product covered in the video. 22% made a point to visit the website that was in the advert. The numbers look too enticing, here is the bombshell, your business’ website has a chance of getting 64% more visitors if you use online video marketing. Last but certainly not the least, visitors who view videos online tend to stay longer on the site.

Now don’t you just take notice of the importance of video marketing, act right away before you are overtaken by your rivals, or is it competitors?

I get ask by small business owners, “Should I have a mobile website or an app?” Luckily, the answer is clear: both!

A recent survey of 500 small businesses discovered that 81% of businesses that have mobile websites and apps,  said both are equally important!

Here are the highlights from the survey:

Mobile website versus mobile app:

• Value. 61% said an app provided a better return on investment.

• Customer preference. 81% said customers preferred the app to the mobile website.

• New customer generation. 75% said app was better for customer generation.

• Repeat business. 86% said app was better for creating repeat customers.

• Usage. 61% said app was used more often.

The app pretty clearly has the edge in the opinion of most small business owners. But that doesn’t mean that apps are right for everyone. The infographic found below contains the rest of our findings, and a wealth of information for small businesses considering “going mobile.”

I like to tell business owners that mobile websites are necessary for business acquisition; and mobile apps are incredibly good for creating and maintaining customer loyalty. You might want to take our App Questionnaire that helps you make the decision whether you need an app or not.

Engaging an Audience

Building an audience beyond one’s own hometown has enabled growth and expansion for many local and offline businesses. The Internet has provided a virtual bridge to make this happen. While some local businesses may find social media platforms such as Instagram unnecessary, it can be beneficial in that it can teach these hesitant businesses about trends within their own business model. Moreover, it can allow businesses to scope competition, connect with other businesses to maximize exposure and allow connections with clients/customers on a more personal level.

Promotion

Not only can Instagram activity connect a business to its customers and other businesses on a personal and professional level, perhaps most importantly, it allows a business to build or expand its brand. Promotion is necessary for leads and leads are what generate sales. A bar or nightclub may share pictures of previous concerts or flyers of upcoming events and in turn, wind up selling more tickets and alcohol to increase profits. And fans love winning free stuff. Many businesses on Instagram hold contests by encouraging followers to snap pictures and attach a hashtag, according to a prompt, and upload them to win free products or services.

Relevance

Instagram is currently the “it” social media platform of the moment, just as Pinterest had its shine in the spotlight just last year; they are both similar given that they are primarily photo-based. Thus, keeping up with social media trends can be critical to one’s business. Why? With the diversity of people engaging in social media, a business is sure to find its target market(s) within this Internet culture. Moreover, keeping up with social media trends reveals a business’ efforts of increasing its brand awareness not only to increase its profits but to stay relevant.

With more social media platform efforts popping up left and right, trying to stay active and keep up with them all can become overwhelming. One piece of advice is to not join every single popular social media site. Find out which ones work best for you. Another suggestion is to hire an assistant to manage your social media sites if you believe “the more the merrier”.

Have Fun

While running a business requires dedication, sweat and sometimes tears, it should never be all work and no play. Instagram is perfect for displaying fun times in the office or when you’re out and about having lunch or dinner with coworkers. Sharing these types of images with followers speaks volumes. It not only suggests that you don’t take life too seriously while on the job, but instead you must be happy and successful in your career.

This article was provided by Paul Stretton of Buy Instagram Followers. For more information about their Instagram services please contact them today to sample their buy instagram likes service.

The Importance of Content Authorship

It is becoming more and more obvious that authorship and original content will be important to rankings in the near future. I don’t believe this is something that any serious business owner can ignore any longer. Unless of course you enjoy being behind the eight ball.

Storified by Donna Amos· Fri, Mar 29 2013 13:37:57

You are forced to keep up with the pace at which changes are taking place in the tech world. In the first two months of 2013 alone, Google has released more than ten updates to its algorithms. How many of us who are not so technically endowed can keep up? But like it or not these updates have a direct bearing on your pages’ rank. You have no other option but to work within the dictates offered by the updates. In terms of Google we are in an era where the rules are strictly implemented.

Google which also happens to be the search engine of choice across the world has also introduced Google Plus, which by now you should be aware of. Google Plus is being used to help push Author Rank as a way of ranking pages. What Google is simply doing is to rank the authors the same way they rank websites. Being an author, Google wants to identify you, index your content in all locations and then have a score assigned to your content.

How is this important? First and foremost people using the Internet will be able to find your content more easily. Google is leveraging on authors as an important element in ranking pages and websites. Users will be able to search for content using the author’s ID/name. If you can position yourself as an author of repute, an authority in your field, you will get to receive a handsome reward.

Your grasp of a particular topic will be tested as Google seeks to measure your expertise and authority. The two factors: expertise and authority among other factors will be used to rank you.

• The number of followers you have.
• The number of re-shares your content gets.
• The number of +1′s you get. (By the way, when someone +1′s your content, it’s not just your content getting a vote — it’s you. Your reputation grows in the process.)
• Activity. Are you posting regularly? Commenting? Resharing and plus one-ing?

Your profile on Google Plus will be used to rank you. Social interactions around your content including a count of the +1s for your content and how often the content is shared will be integral in your rank. Remember, some +1s count more than others, a +1 from a respected source is more valuable.

Sharing content will get you a higher rank than a simple +1. This is because it takes more effort from your followers to share your content. The bottom line, to build your author rank you have to be an author. You should create high quality content which is also original. To appear more knowledgeable about a particular topic you should write about it in more detail, frequently.

Next have your content posted on your blog or website, then, make certain your authorship is connected on Google Plus.

If you are on Google+ why not join our community “Marketing Offline Businesses Online“

This is interesting; I first saw a tweet by a business partner of the author. The author is an Internet marketing guru and so is his partner who had just shared the post. Social media brought his post to my attention. So how bad is social media? A successful businessperson does not run away from risks, she mitigates against them while taking them head-on. The higher the risk the higher the possible returns.

Social media is a very powerful business tool that also offers a high level of versatility and can be leveraged in business to provide a definite competitive advantage. Many businesses are successfully using social media to attract attention and new clients.

You do not have to fear social media, be strong and courageous, use it in the right way and reap the benefits. Unsure how to take full advantage, consult a marketing professional and develop a strategy. You can learn from a marketing professional who knows the dos and the don’ts of social media or you can spend the time to educate yourself about social media dos and don’ts.  Here is article that can get you started.

I often hear local business owners say that they don’t want to give unhappy customers the ability to post negative comments on the social media channels.  Negative sentiments about a brand including yours will always be there whether you are logged onto a social network or not. In fact your business faces a greater risk if you do not use social networks to “clear the air” on matters or issues touching on your business that are being peddled around by customers, potential customers or haters. Having used social media tools for many years I can authoritatively say that social sites have embolden haters but they also present businesses with an avenue to create great customer experiences. The danger of not being involved with social media is those negative comments can be out there and you will not be aware of it.  Social media is a great tool for reputation management.

Social media is just but technology, you can use it for good or evil. The amplifying effect of the tool is what matters in your business. But poor planning and naivety will do more harm than good to your business. Build a strong social media strategy that is customized to fit your business needs.

Social media is no longer a choice in business, it is a transformative revolution. Ignore it and end up lagging behind as your competitor’s edge forward. Embrace it now and see the kind of business opportunities it opens. Iconic companies in all imaginable business areas including the likes of Coca-Cola, G.E. Accenture, Oreo and NASA have jubilantly capitalized on social media to build there brands. It is time to set it right in your business; social media has something for every type of business including yours.

But what happens with people who prefer audio visual communication? You may be losing out on a sizeable number of potential customers because of relying on written blog posts and articles. A video accompanying some of your blog posts and articles in your website will help capture these people. I have seen clients get great results from online video marketing.

If you ever doubted the value of online video marketing then, just have a look at the following strengths of video marketing.

• Video is more visually stimulating: This quality makes it possible for you to utilize video marketing to capture and stimulate interest for your product/service in prospective customers.
• Higher retention rate: Studies on how much people are able to retain show that they are able to remember much more information if the same was contained in a video than simply reading.
• Saves time: A good video will save your prospects time. You may wish to use a short video that communicates what you want. If the same message were to be offered in writing it would probably take a prospect more time to read it. Time is what many readers seem to have in short supply.
• Higher conversion rate: Video marketing will give your business what sales letters and other written forms of communication have not been able to deliver. Videos are great in lead generation and lead conversion because it allows you to build trust faster than the written word,

Here is proof that online video marketing really works.

• YouTube has an average of 4 billion hits every day.
• By the end of 2012 mobile video viewers were more 54 million.
• Video marketing has been shown to increase incidences of purchase by almost 24%.
• Video is sixth in popularity in terms of content marketing.
• Video marketing increases traffic to a website by as much as 55%, meaning that if you used to enjoy 1,000 hits a month after aggressive video marketing you can expect to have as many as 1,550 hits per month in the long run.
• Businesses with brick and mortar establishments enjoyed close to 30% more visitors after successfully marketing their products and businesses via video marketing.

Not sure what to include in an effective video try the following in your video:

1. The exterior of your premises, if any.
2. Employees as they perform their work.
3. Your products.
4. Your interactions with customers.
5. Create a series of tips that provide value for your audience.

Lastly, you can include any other piece of information that you want to share with your customers and prospects. However, always end your videos with a call to action. Even if that is simply asking them to share the video in social media.

You might want to listen to Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner’s podcast this week on YouTube.

A wonderfully made video is not enough. You should also strive to market the work of art that you have managed to produce. Keyword research will be integral in marketing your video(s). SEO principles are applicable when marketing videos. Use SEO strategies which have proven to be effective in your Internet marketing escapades. Final word, measure and track the results, continue with what is working and discontinue what is no longer working.

If I didn’t use a video to help get my point across what kind of marketer would I be?

Most of us are looking for ways to grow our business. Are you using what you achieved the previous year to spur the intent to achieve more this year? This means you have to know what you achieved in 2012.  A previous mentor use to say “inspect what you expect” another way to say it is if you want to improve in any area you must measure your results.

To grow your businesses profitability you need a plan with concrete marketing strategies. A good product or service that is not supported by good marketing may never see the light of day. How well you market your products and/or services will determine how well you will do in the market.

We have come to the point that regardless of what you offer you must have a marketing platform on the web, what strategies are you using to market your services/products? You’re probably using some of the most commonly used marketing techniques on the web, such as Search Engine Marketing Strategies, Social Media tools and email marketing.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one strategy that you cannot do without. Even a brick and mortar business needs the use of SEM to drive that online traffic into their offline business. This technique will entail the use of appropriate keywords to increase your website’s relevance in search engines, but that is just the beginning. This is the kind of task that you may find difficult to do without an expert’s assistance.

Regardless of whether you hire an expert or do them yourself, the following key things need to be performed;

1. Analyze the Market: In the analysis look at several aspects concerning the market including; the market size, the market trends, market positioning for your website and products.
2. Analyze your Competitiveness: In the analysis your ability in the search marketing space should be looked at in comparison with your competitors.

At the end a tailor made plan that will involve the use of any or a combination of the following three SEM strategies may be implemented:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through unique consistent content,
• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, and
• Paid Inclusion in Search Engines

But did you know that what makes the difference between success and failure in the use of these marketing strategies is the ability to differentiate your business? Creating a unique identity for your business using these techniques is what counts here. Today that means creating unique content on your website.

Finally, stay ahead of the competition by adapting to the changing technologies well before your competitors. Your SEM plan is not cast in stone, change it to adapt to the ever changing market.

Search Engine Marketing Strategies are different today than they were even a year ago. Over the past two years, Google has been slowly shifting towards a new way of ranking sites – a system based on popularity more than clever tactics.  Using social recognition to determine if a website is more relevant than another.  Google rewards quality and relevancy.  With that being said, if this has been helpful please click the Google + or share on Facebook. J