by Stefanie Blackburn | Content Creation, Content Marketing
Anyone who has worked for a small business knows that in order to be successful, especially in the beginning, you’ve got to wear a lot of hats. From answering phones to social media marketing, you’ve probably figured out how to do it all, and do it all well. But that doesn’t mean it’s all been a piece of cake. Luckily, though, cutting edge tech tools keep popping up with the sole purpose of making small businesses more competitive and efficient, so why not take advantage? We compiled a list of the top tech tools that will help you improve your Content Marketing game and make your life a little easier. SEMrush A major reason you’re doing content marketing is to show up in the search engines, and that’s where SEMrush can help! SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO tool that does everything from making you aware of backlinking opportunities to help you determine what keywords you need to incorporate to rank higher than your competitors on Google. SEMrush will also run an SEO audit on your site and help you find areas that need improvement. Price: After a 14-day free trial, SEMrush has several monthly pricing plans– ranging from $99.95 to $399.95– for you to choose from. You can also get a discount by purchasing the yearly subscription. Canva You want your content to look good! If you don’t have the budget for a design team, look into Canva. This graphic design software can help you create aesthetically pleasing branding and marketing tools. And the best news? You don’t need a graphic design degree to pull it off. Think of...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Social Media
A robust social media following is fantastic — if it’s driving results. But if you have 100,000 social followers who will never buy anything from you, then you’re wasting a lot of time and not making any money. That’s why you should always be thinking about what you can do to bring more leads into your online social circle, and how you can turn those leads into paying customers. So I’m going to show you five simple steps you can take on your social media profiles to bring in more leads, and get more conversions. 1. Link to a lead magnet A social media user that checks out your feed once and then disappears is no good to you. Even if they follow one of your social accounts, it’s very possible that the dreaded algorithms will hide your content from a large portion of your followers. But if you had an email address for that person, you’d be able to reach them anytime you want, building that relationship and encouraging them to work with you in the future. To get that valuable contact info, link to a freebie in your social bios. This could be an ebook, white paper, webinar — something that would be attractive to one of your future customers. And all they have to do to get it is hand over that email address. 2. Use the right keywords Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn bios and posts are all searchable. So make sure to pepper in relevant keywords in your industry. To figure out the right keywords, you’ll have to do a little keyword research. Just like...
by Stefanie Blackburn | How To's & Info you can use
With the current situation in many workplaces due to COVID-19, flexible, and remote/home-based working situations are very prevalent. Currently many small, medium and large businesses have adapted and many employees that once were based in the office on a daily basis are working from home and, the full return to office date is unknown. This new environment has forced employers to quickly implement this working arrangement. The following discusses how this type of environment, in most circumstances, can be beneficial. Considering the benefits of a more flexible work arrangement for employees of your company? We don’t blame you. We’re big believers that flexible work arrangements are the future of many (if not most) workplaces. And we aren’t alone…some pretty smart people agree! According to a recent Inc.com article: “…Bill Gates shared what he thinks is the most important perk companies can give the best employees: flexible work arrangements.” Also from the same article: “Now a new study from Harvard Business School says companies that let their employees “work from anywhere” and work whenever they want wind up with employees who are more loyal, more productive and cost less.” Why Does Flexibility Work? What are some of the reasons why the ability to work outside of the typical office environment is so popular and generates loyalty? Employees can choose to live in more affordable locations, which in turn boosts their real incomes; They can more easily take care of other personal needs, such as caring for children or elderly parents; Less time spent commuting; More flexibility to travel and set their own schedules Tips for a Successful Flexible Work Arrangement...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Article Marketing, Blogging, Content Curation, Content Marketing
In today’s world of bite-sized social posts, it may be tempting to believe that long-form content is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth, and if you aren’t creating longer content, you are missing a lot of great benefits from your content marketing. Yes, producing 3000-4000 words for a post involves a lot of work – research, writing, editing – that may seem like overkill in an era of decreasing attention spans. But the reality is that long-form content has a lot of benefits that make the investment worth the effort. 5 reasons why you should publish long-form content Here are five reasons why you should still be creating long-form content for your business. 1. Increased viewing time The amount of time a visitor spends on your site is an important metric for a variety of reasons, from increased engagement of your visitors to better quality and relevance scores in search engines and advertising platforms. Longer content can increase the average time on site – It takes about eight minutes for a person to read through an 1800-word long post. It can also increase the likelihood that readers will engage with other content of yours as well. 2. Greater position of authority The ability to produce long content generally means that you have more information that can be useful for your readers, positioning you as an authority. Of course, it can’t simply be long for the sake of being long – it needs to be high-quality and demonstrate that you put in the effort to create content worthy of your reader’s time. 3. Higher quality conversions Making your...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Marketing, Social Media
As was widely reported a short time ago with much fanfare, Instagram has started hiding likes as a test to see if doing so will make the app more enjoyable for users. The test started in Canada but has now been rolled out to six additional countries – Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. We Bet It’s Here To Stay Our bet is that this change isn’t temporary. There has been so much written about the negative toll that a focus on likes is having on people’s mental health, that we believe that Instagram has pretty much already made up their mind about this move. The fact that they rolled it out in seven major markets makes us confident in saying so as well. And we think this is a good thing for everyone, including your business. Here’s Why Hiding Likes Is Good For Your Business Here are three reasons why we think Instagram hiding like counts is good for your business: 1. You’ll start tracking metrics that matter Likes are a false currency. You can’t take them to the bank, and you can’t pay your bills with them. So there is no great reason to make them the focus of your Instagram strategy. But that’s exactly what’s happened. It’s time to start tracking the metrics that actually matter, like reach, engagement, saves, 2. You’ll start sharing content that’s more authentic Admit it, at one point or another, you’ve held back on something you wanted to post because you didn’t think the Instagram community would like it enough. Everyone that markets on Instagram have done that! But...
