Social Media

If you’re not the type to whine and complain about Facebook reducing brand content visibility, then you’re the type who reads my blog. It’s going to be tough for a lot of people (because they used gimmicks like giveaways and invite a friend to build an audience), and increasing organic reach on Facebook now involves “work”, “research” and “marketing”.  But if you begin to use Facebook as a professional instead of just seeing what got likes and shares, you too can win and potentially grow or scale your company’s reach.

Below is one example of step-by-step instructions to find that core, engaged fanbase of evangelists which is what you need to do to beat this new algorithm and get some solid organic exposure.  Yes, you will need to spend a little bit of money to find them, but luckily it won’t be too much if you do this right.

I’m breaking it down into 5 simple steps and in the explanations, it’s only three.  It’s that easy so no joining in the complaining and Facebook bashing.  Instead be proactive and start testing and growing.  On a side note, I have not used this specific idea with any of my clients yet, but I am certainly going to be using this one, but more in depth and detailed as they’re ready for it.

Steps to Get More Organic Reach On Facebook:

1. Install the Facebook pixel
2. Learn how to create a custom audience based on URLs
3. Go advanced and create a unique audience based on the type of content (most companies will only need 4 or 5 of these audiences)
4. Publish some “quality” content that uses a landing page
5. Publish the next round of content and run it as an ad to the custom audience

Here’s more detail on these 5 steps.

[Read more…] about How to Use Facebook Tools to Find Your Audience & Increase Reach

I love my soon-to-be previous skin care cosmetics company.  I swear by them (even though I’m giving them up) and if you’ve ever seen my bathroom, you know that’s true.  Unfortunately they’ve lost me as a regular customer this month (after close to 10 years) because of one simple thing, their email strategy.

When I wrote to them asking for help, I never heard back.  It was both for purchasing product from their ecommerce store and also to only get the marketing emails that are relevant to me.  That’s why I’m writing this post.  I would love to shop with them again, but they make it too much work when I’m buying a luxury product where there are alternatives.

But first a bit of background.

I live in Washington DC and their closest spa to me is in NYC (as far as I know).  Although that spa is only 4 hours away, they constantly email me that I would save $50 on a spa treatment.  No offense to them, but $50 does not equal train tickets or gas all the way to NYC and definitely not a hotel room for the night.  I wrote a few times asking for an email opt-out from this message so that I can get their coupon emails, but not the spa treatments and of course I never heard back.

They do have an opt-out in their email footer, but it is basically to opt-out of everything and doesn’t offer a selection for specific types of emails.  When I need to restock (unless I find another brand that I love), I now have to check their site and jump through hoops just to see if a special is going on instead of just waiting for the weekly or bi-weekly coupon emails.  I’m not willing to do that.  They may now lose me after close to a decade of being a loyal customer.  

If I was working with their marketing team (If they’re reading this I would love to work with you, hint hint and yes I am emailing this post to them), here is what I would do for them and how I could take their email marketing and turn it into a multi-channel sales funnel for both product sales and spa visits.

• Database segmentation
• Opt-in and opt-out options
• Reminder to re-order
• Facebook ads (this section is the good one)

[Read more…] about A FREE Multi-channel Email Marketing Strategy

Twitter ads provide a unique opportunity for customer acquisition that you cannot get with many other ad platforms.  Users go to Twitter for research, to find solutions for problems and most importantly to bitch about and at the companies that they’re upset with.  It’s never fun to be on the receiving end of these people’s complaints, but it does open an opportunity for you to advertise directly to your competitors customers.

This is ideal for startups, companies with limited budgets and people in a competitive niche that has plateaued and battle for customers.  By using a two tiered or single account approach, you can begin to target your competitors client base while they’re upset and try to turn them into your customers by running ads that address your competitions biggest issues.

This post will go over a few ways to do this.  It’s definitely not nice, it’s not really ethical, but it is business and along the same lines of bidding on your competitors trademarks in the search engines.  If you’re ok with doing that, or you just hate your competition, here are a few ways to steal their customers and clients.  The success will depend on what your ads look like, what messaging you use and your ability to target well (and if your competitors have an active audience on Twitter).

[Read more…] about How to Steal Your Competitors Customers With Twitter

Many marketers think that Pinterest marketing is about creating boards, having contests where your followers upload images, commenting on pins and then cross promoting with other Pinners.  All of these are great ways to engage an audience, but Pinterest also has a great ad platform that is very affordable to use.  The cost per click are still very low for many niches and the tracking is almost 100% perfect making it a great opportunity for affiliates, small businesses and bloggers to drive sales, build a following and grow their businesses.

This post will walk you through a strategy to get started using Pinterest ads.  I’m using my client’s plus size lingerie affiliate program featuring their Halloween costumes for the post.  These costumes do amazingly well in September and October which make them a great fit because they hit all of the goals of a potential shopper that may be on Pinterest.  What do I mean by that?

There are many types of pinners and processes they are in as a consumer:

• Shoppers – creating wish lists and holiday lists of things they’ll buy.
• Researchers – just doing research and looking for ideas, they are creating pinboards filled with things they want, but aren’t ready to buy just yet.
• Enthusiasts – people who just pin because they like to pin.  They may have less of a chance of buying and create boards based on interests instead of things they want to use in real life.

You also have types of boards:

• Planning boards – weddings, parties, costumes – these are things the pinner will use while they are putting together their ideal event, outfit, etc…  They might not purchase everything, but they may be more likely to shop through them as they put their event together.  They are shoppers and researchers.
• How to boards – crafts, recipes, home improvement – these are boards where people might plan on making something and may need the supplies.  By having your blog posts and guides pinned, as the pinner comes back to create the project, you can now make money if they click your links or go to your site and make the purchase.  They are shoppers and researchers.
• Fan boards – Celebrities, TV Shows, Fictional Characters – these are great boards to be on if you’re promoting merchandise.  If someone loves a specific show, character or celebrity and you have the merchandise as a pin with a link or on a blog post with an affiliate link, they may be more likely to buy it for birthdays, the holidays or because they love it.  These could be all three of the types of pinners mentioned above.
• Wish boards – dream homes, yachts, designer clothing – these are boards people build with things they want to achieve or dream about owning.  They may never be able to afford it and create boards as things that motivate or they dream about.  You want to try and avoid being on these, unless there is a big following with shoppers.
• Fantasy and pretty boards – gorgeous images, expensive artwork, hot bodies/people – these are boards you do not always want your pins to get pinned to, unless there is a following of shoppers on it.  These boards tend to be for fun, but if there are shoppers and your product is relevant, it could drive sales.  I try to stay away from these boards since they are less targeted and more for fun.

So why did I post all of this instead of jumping right in?

Before you spend money, you need to define who your customer is, what types of boards they can find you on and how to try and get the pinner to add you to those boards.

If your pin is only on boards where people may be less likely to shop or do not have a following with shoppers, you can change your targeting or eliminate targets to help get your pins onto boards with shoppers and researchers. If you’re getting added to board and attracting shoppers and making money, you can now modify the target groups and try to grow the campaign to make more.  Finding the right audience and getting them to add you to the right boards or to click through to your website is the key to making money with pinterest ads.  Now, here’s the step by step guide on how to use Pinterest ads to target shoppers and make money.   [Read more…] about How to Use Pinterest Ads to Make Money

As an affiliate, a business owner or even a blogger, Facebook ads is a channel you do not want to ignore. It might not convert as well as Google adwords since you’re not showing ads during the research and shopping process, and their algorithm may not show you as well organically as it used to; but to make up for it the Facebook ad network is dirt cheap and can help you to drive sales, build a following and a loyal group of fans.

For this post I’m going to pretend to be an affiliate for my client SmugMug and show you 5 ways that I would run, target and track the effectiveness of my Facebook ads.  It isn’t the full strategy, but it is more than enough to get you going.

Feel free to use this for your own SmugMug affiliate campaigns as well as tweak it to grow your following, customer base and business. If you’d like to try it in the SmugMug affiliate program, I’m always happy to have a skype call and we can work on building campaigns together.  If you aren’t a SmugMug affiliate, click here to sign up now.

[Read more…] about How to Use Facebook Ad Targeting to Make Money