With countless numbers of social media marketing tools on the market, as a small business sometimes it’s hard to decipher which ones are actually worth investing time into – especially when it’s not your field of expertise… so, to help you out, we’ve put together a list of 5 social marketing platforms that are definitely worth looking into!

Facebook Pages for Business

With just under 11 million users in Australia, Facebook gives businesses a unique opportunity to connect, converse and engage with current and potential customers in an informal, non-salesy, professional way. According to eMarketingConnected, 48% of Australia’s top 50 brands have active and customised Facebook Pages, with over 75% of businesses dedicating time and resources to managing a Facebook page.

Also, according to Webmarketing123′s State of Digital Marketing report,  businesses across Australia are already investing heavily in social media as part of their digital marketing strategy, with the majority of B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) companies using Facebook as their major social media platform.

Twitter Profiles for Business

Similarly, Twitter is a fantastic place to communicate one-on-one with potential customers, and moreso it is also an effective tool to use for business to business communications. Using Twitter as a marketing tool needs to be a concious decision for a business, as it does take a considerable resource to manage; and to be successful you have to enjoy the process. But, with approximately 1.8 million users across Australia, the platform certainly has enough momentum and potential for businesses to consider it’s use as an effective online marketing tool.

Google +

Google + is social media platform created by Google and has been developed to rival Facebook as a leading social media platform for conversing, sharing and engaging content online. Although it is currently in growth mode (estimated 1.2 million users in australia) it is well worth being an early adopter, so when the time comes that everyone is on board, you are well versed in its capabilities and you’re not behind the 8 ball. Also, similar to Facebook, Google + are now offering business pages!

YouTube Channel

With similar subscription numbers as Facebook, YouTube is another dominant social media platform. Google also owns YouTube (you need a google account to sign up to manage a channel) and therefore, all videos are highly optimised for search engines.

You may notice that Google in particular has a specific video search only functionality on the search side bar, which is primarily dedicated to YouTube videos! Therefore, if you have a product or service that you can film and publish, then absolutely do it, as it is another way to be found by potential customers online.

LinkedIn

One of the most valuable social media tools available, Linked In is the perfect place to research your new candidates and also build profitable relationships with like minded businesses. Build your personal, and company profiles and start communicating with your colleagues, and potential employees today!

Things to remember about social media marketing…

It’s really important to remember that these social media platforms are online marketing tools designed to DRIVE traffic to your website, not to REPLACE the need for your website… yes they are free to set up (aside from some custom branding expenses) however, they are not reliable online portals (in that they could be here today, gone tomorrow – think myspace) and you do not own the infrastructure so you have no control.

Therefore it is important to communicate and educate your likers and followers about your website as your main online presence, so that in the potential event that Facebook or Twitter becomes null and void, your prospects know where to find you!

Need help with your social media marketing?

If you are struggling with your social media marketing strategies, and need some assistance with strategy, content planning or implementation, please contact Naomi to discuss your challenges. We’re here to help!

Register to attend our online marketing workshop today!

If you are interested in learning more about how to ensure your website is working for your business, then please register for our online marketing workshop ‘Building and Managing a website that works’. Paige Rowett, our digital marketing strategist will be facilitating this intensive workshop, which will be held at the Port Lincoln Hotel on Wednesday 7th March.

For more information please read the workshop outline, or to register today, please visit our workshop registration page >>>

Across Australia, businesses of all shapes and sizes are taking advantage of the marketing capacity of today’s online global juggernaut – Facebook.

Facebook Pages are Facebook’s answer to business ‘websites’ within Facebook. They offer a unique platform which gives businesses opportunity to connect, converse and engage with current and potential customers in an informal, non-salesy, professional way.

According to eMarketingConnected, 48% of Australia’s top 50 brands have active and customised Facebook Pages, with over 75% of businesses dedicating time and resources to managing a Facebook page.

The cold hard stats…

Facebook is the most utilised social media platform, with just under 11 million subscribers in Australia, and over 800 million users (as at Jan 2012) across the globe. According to socialmedianews.com.au, Facebook continues to grow and has seen exponential growth during 2011 (an increase of just under 1.5 million).

In Webmarketing 123′s 2011 State of Digital Marketing report, research indicates that businesses across Australia are already investing heavily in social media as part of their digital marketing strategy, with the majority of B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) companies using Facebook as their major social media platform.

The report also highlighted that over 40% of businesses were able to make sales conversions through their Facebook page, and 60% of both B2C and B2B businesses anticipate on increasing their digital marketing spend on social media in 2012 (as illustrated in this image).

So, I guess it really begs the question… why would (and should) businesses invest in a website, when they can set up a Facebook page for little upfront investment which can generate decent product/service sales?

Reasons why Facebook should never replace your business’ website.

1. Facebook is owned by Facebook, not by your business.

As the title suggests, you do not own your business’ Facebook page – Facebook does. One of the fundamental reasons why Facebook will never be able to offer a reliable website presence for any brand is the pure and simple fact that businesses can not take control of their page independent of the mothership (well not yet anyway!).

2. Facebook Pages have very limited functionality.

Although they are somewhat customisable (using custom tab functionality for welcome pages), all Pages are based on a template, which allows minimal freedom in terms of custom design and branding. Although this is great for Facebook (one-size fits all approach = less dramas) it doesn’t allow for businesses to really optimise their page to benefit their brand.

3. Facebook analytics (monitoring and measurement tools) are very limited

Facebook have got a limited monitoring and measurement analytics tool available for businesses to analyse the success of their Facebook page. Even though they have recently improved their page analytics, they are not quite to the standard which can be monitored through a website.

A business’ website should be at the epicentre of any marketing strategy. This is because of it’s ability (through the use of Google Analytics) to capture and present extensive data relating to visitation, which (with good interpretation and content management) can lead to increased sales conversion… ultimately putting dollars in pockets.

4. Facebook may be here today, gone tomorrow

The owners and caretakers of Facebook have the power to change policies, lose or delete data, could potentially go out of business, or just drop off the social radar when other new platforms are built (remember MySpace?!).

For example, Google has recently released it’s new Google Plus social media platform. This will likely change the landscape of social media marketing for businesses during 2012. Whether it can unseat Facebook as the leading social sharing platform remains to be seen. History shows us there are no guarantees!

5. Not everyone uses Facebook

Although Facebook has nearly 11 million subscribers in Australia, it has only penetrated 60% of the online population -therefore there is an unaccounted 40% of potential customers who are online searching for your product. It is therefore extremely important to have a website presence in addition to a Facebook presence, in order to be able to capture not only those on Facebook, but the wider online community.

6. Facebook management does cost businesses time.

Facebook Pages should never be considered as a ‘cheap’ website option for businesses. Businesses are often attracted to using Facebook as a replacement for a website because of the small (if any) investment of time and money to set it up. However, if your business wants to succeed on Facebook (that is, generate sales), it is important to dedicate time and energy into updating content, responding to queries and engaging with customers.

What is the best way to use Facebook for my business, then?

We don’t recommend that Facebook replaces your website. Rather, we advocate that Facebook should be used in conjunction with your website to engage and connect with your clients. This will give your business additional reach which you may not be able to get from your website alone.

Use Facebook as a part of a well-thought-out online marketing strategy

A good digital marketing strategy will consider a business website as a ‘hub’ of a wheel, with social media and various other online activities as the ‘spokes’.

This image from www.findandconvert.com illustrates this model perfectly… whereby social media offers a platform from which businesses can engage with customers online, and drive them to visit the website.

Once they arrive at the website, their movements can be tracked through Google Analytics. With careful content planning and website optimisation, visitors can be encouraged to make a sales conversion – which is what puts dollars in pockets!

Take control of your online strategy

We can help you define and develop your online and digital marketing strategy, including Facebook. Please contact Naomi via email or call 08 8682 6093.

Research suggests that the top 3 Google organic search results represent 58.4% of click-throughs from Internet users - Research obtained from Optify, Marketing in Real Time.

Benefits of Ranking on Page 1

It can be seen from the below graph that the top result receives approximately 36.4% click throughs, with second and third results achieving 12.5 and 9.5% click throughs respectively.

What does this mean for your business you may ask? Well, it’s simple… if you are not appearing in the top 3 search results (or even on the first page), then the opportunity of obtaining traffic to your website from search engines is limited.

How do I get on Page 1 of search results?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO as it is commonly referred, is about getting highly targeted traffic to your website that converts to sales. It is the process of improving the structure and content of your website, so that it has the best opportunity to rank highly in search engine results, and therefore attract a higher percentage of click-throughs to your site.

As the powerhouse search engine of our time, Google now has the capacity to crawl websites with a more human approach. Whereby, if businesses want to be found through organic search, they really need to manage a truly relevant, dynamic website. Gone are the days of creating a web page and leaving it for months (or years!) without change… if we do that these days, it’s highly likely that no one will find it, as Google will simply ignore it.

Check out this YouTube video from one of Google’s employees as he demonstrates how Google searches for webpages to list into organic search results >

Paid vs organic search results

Some businesses choose to engage pay-per-click advertising through Google Adwords to obtain increased click throughs to their website, and therefore increased traffic to their website.

There are some advantages to paid advertising, including the guarantee of being listed on the first page, however it does come at a cost. The image below suggests that the organic search results actually receive a lot more click through potential (70-75%) than that of paid listing (25-30%). Therefore, it would be far better to advance an SEO strategy to determine organic results potential, prior to developing a PPC campaign.

Image provided by UK SEO Consultant, Neil Walker

Capturing lost opportunity by using SEO

There are several techniques involved in executing strategic SEO.

Identifying relevant keywords

The identification of relevant keywords (and strategic placement of these keywords throughout the site) is an essential part of the SEO process.

Often websites will receive the majority of traffic from search engines from people typing in keywords of the business’ name, eg. to find our website people might type in ‘Woof Design and Print’, as that is what our business name is. This is great… however, that means the website is only capturing those people who know our business.

An optimised website, however, will ensure people find a business based on keywords, rather than known business reputation, eg. to find our website, people might type in ‘graphic design port lincoln’.

Undertaking SEO optimisation can provide additional opportunities for online engagement and potential sales conversion, through capturing the interest of those who are looking for your product but don’t know your business.

Content is king

As with most marketing material content is king; especially since it is the content on websites that Google uses to determine whether it will rank highly in it’s search results.

The copy on your website needs to reflect your identified keywords, as well as make sense. There are several strategies and techniques with regard to keyword placement that can be implemented to ensure that your copy is designed best for search engines.

It is also important that the copy on your website is also relevant to your product/service. As mentioned about, Google will only present your website in search results if it believes that the content you are displaying is relevant.

Updating your content regularly is also essential as Google gets bored and needs to be reminded why it has placed your website in organic search results – so make sure you give it good reason to keep your site right up the top of the rankings!

Link building

By link building, we don’t mean trying to get reciprocal links with as many random websites as possible, or having a specific ‘Links’ page on your website.

Link building refers to ‘inlinking’, which is how many relevant external sites are linking to your website; and ‘intext linking’ which refers to adding hyperlinks to keywords or phrases in your website copy to refer to other pages in your site. This not only creates excellent online clout (leveraging the success of other websites), but also shows that you are producing relevant content, thereby being a expert in the field of certain keywords.

Measuring SEO performance

It is essential that businesses have a good understanding of their website’s performance through a measurement tool, like Google Analytics.

If you do measure your website’s performance you will have an idea about how people are currently finding your site and what they are doing whilst they are visiting. If you have a low percentage of people finding your site through search engines, (particularly if people are only finding you through search engines via your business name, not target keywords) then you probably need to work on your SEO.

How can Woof assist you with your website’s SEO?

At Woof, we can assist clients by undertaking an SEO audit, writing or refining website copy which is optimised for keywords as they relate to specific target markets, and implementing the copy into the website.

Feel free to email Naomi or give her a call on 08 8682 6093 for more information.