It’s October and this is the time of year when ghosts will be hard at work scaring us. Smart companies, utilizing social media marketing strategies, are using ghosts to “scare” up more business. Well, we’re not really talking about the kind of ghosts that scream “boo.” We’re talking about ghostwriters. 

When using social media marketing, you need to be current and up to date on information you put on your blogs, websites or newsletters.  For small business owners, there is no time to sit in front of a computer writing new content or providing up-to-date data on your field and service. It’s impossible. 

One solution is to hire a professional writer to generate the content for you. Anonymous writers are called ghostwriters. Currently, there is a growing pool of ghostwriters both independent and through agencies to help save your digital marketing ambitions. After a few conversations with a ghostwriter or company you can determine the direction you want to go with the content of your articles. Many people come from diverse backgrounds, and you would be surprised to find out just what people specialize in. 

Besides being able to maintain a regular schedule for the output of information, there are other advantages of hiring a ghostwriter.

• Fresh information and content – Search engines love new information and content on your website or blog. Your search rankings will be given a boost with regular posts and updates.
  
• New Prospective – Having a fresh set of eyes looking at your business or field can be helpful. Often times a new set of eyes is all that it takes to spot an overlooked value in your offering. 
  
• Short and sweet -- Ghostwriters are not immersed in everyday life of your business and can avoid writing fluff. They write what people may want to read – since, in theory, they represent the public. 

So, maybe this is the month to invest in a ghostwriter to help your campaign. Boosting your ranking by adding regular, fresh content won’t scare away business, but may bring in more.

Contact Us Today, to learn more about ghostwriting, marketing, and blogging for small business, or visit our informational sister site at www.SimplySocialHub.com.

Your small business may be thinking about creating an email marketing campaign but just not 100 percent positive. Whether your business goal is promote a product or service, educate the public or clients or perhaps a combination of both, e-marketing can help you achieve all of these.

Here are just a few reasons how E-marketing can help your small business 

• Your customers can receive messages wherever they are . . .home, office or vacation.
  
• You can use E-newsletters to create a regular link between brand and customer.
  
• Many customers spend a majority of their time at a computer where the message is delivered.
  
• If you create an E-newsletter, it can supplement other marketing channels and add value to current campaigns.
  
• You can customize e-mail marketing. For instance, customized offers and messaging lets your prospects and customers feel special.
  
• Regular communications keeps your customers and prospects interested and loyal.
  
• E-newsletters enable your customers to get educational information – making your company a teacher and a valuable source or unsolicited information.
  

E-marketing is not going away. Small business can use this strategy, which is low-cost, to maximize their efforts to promote their business. 

You may have heard that if you promote other businesses on social media sites that it can boost your own business. For a newbie, it doesn’t make sense. Promoting others will be good for your own business?  It’s not a surprise for most small business owners just getting into social media marketing to feel stumped about what to share on social media.

Here’s what marketing gurus and experts are referring to when they stress about the importance of promoting others aside from promoting your own blog posts, content, promotions and company information. Remember, promoting others is all about attracting attention, becoming valuable to your followers and remaining consistent.

Here are some general ways promoting others will lead business back to you.

• Trusted sources will take notice that you are sharing their content. Like brick and mortar businesses, they will likely share your content with their followers. This will then increase your visibility and attract more attention to your company. 
  
• Becoming a resource for your followers is key in social media marketing. More people will buy something or take on a service if it is recommended by a friend or a second party. By building value with your clients through sharing quality information, even if it is from  another source, you will create a trusting relationship with the public.
  
• Once you are in the “game” of social media marketing, you need to be consistent. Things like updating your profiles on a regular basis can be a challenge if you are using only your own content. Sharing the content and resources of others gives you more to work with.
  

Sharing and promoting other businesses and industry is almost like a partnership. If they scratch your back, you can scratch theirs.  If you are not sure where to start, think about products or services that your business could partner up with. For example, a restaurant and a delivery service, or a makeup boutique and a clothing store. The key is to share content that is relevant to your followers that is not in direct competition with what you already do.

Social media marketing can be a win-win situation if you do it properly. Everyone wants traffic to their site. Everyone wants new and more business. Why not join forces with others to drive business for both businesses? Everyone wins in this game.

At one time, businesses used brochures as one of their main marketing techniques. When social networking and social media marketing came into the picture, printing brochures started to be considered an extra expense that just wasn’t necessary.  After all, there isn’t a printing expense when you market online? Right?  Small businesses continue to wonder if brochures are even worth printing anymore. Have we really become a paperless society?

Not completely. Small businesses usually have a small budget, and a fairly inexpensive way to market your business to new customers is by creating a brochure that can be strategically placed, handed out at conferences or at meetings.  Brochures provide valuable and quick information about your company, the product or service you provide and how to go about getting it. People sometimes forget to check online or can't remember the website. Brochures are kept in your pocket or wherever you placed it.

Small businesses can use brochures is so many ways. For instance, if you print out a brochure, a person may take it home or back to their business, and set it on their counter. Just like a billboard, the brochure immediately grabs the attention of anyone who can see it. Having something in print still conveys credibility and trust.

There are steps that you need to follow in creating a successful brochure. 

• Make it easy to read. Use bullet points, numbering, and short paragraphs rather than long paragraphs. While you want to get your message across, most people scan text, rather than actually read it. Get to the point about what your message is.
• The brochure should be attractive. Your brochure should be eye catching. Black and white is cheaper than color, but color is going to get you more attention. Unless you are severely under budget, go for the color.  
• Don’t forget the important information like phone, email and website. Tell them about your business but make sure they know who to contact and how do it. Brochures also are a great way to promote your website and your social media profiles on sites like Facebook.
  

People still like to hold paper in their hands that provide information. We are a technically-oriented society but still trust traditional ways of getting information.  Also, our population consists of older Americans who rely on print for information. Brochures can still attract new customers – old and young -- on a reasonable budget. Plus, you can always upload the brochure onto your website.

You may be a small business that has just ventured into the world of social media marketing. You also have a great product and service. Do you know that you can market your product via social media marketing -- by blogging? While traditional ways still work, blogging is cheap and easy to do.

Well all know about Google, and whatever is listed on top wins this contest for that day. What’s the big deal with Google? Well, it’s because being listed at the top is free. Listing at the tippy top of search engines also mean a higher profit margin for your product and better business for you.

Blogging and article writing is a cheap, cost effective way to put your product or service in front of customers. It takes nothing more than your time or the time of someone you may hire to help keep up with the content. The big advantage of blogging is that it’s “organic,” which simply means that your product marketing via the blog stays in the search engines. This gives you free traffic on a constant basis.

Getting to the top of Google is a feat that anyone can do whether they are the largest company in the world or a tiny home-based business. All it takes is consistency and of course some understanding of your product.  Blogging your product is a great alternative to traditional media, and if you get others to blog about your product, then you are really aiming for the top of the Google chart.

So, you’re a small business. But is your website a main component of your marketing and branding efforts? If so, have you looked at your website lately . . .from a client’s point of view? If not, you may want to start right away. Your website could be a reason you are losing business.

Small business can attract potential customers via their business website. To make sure your website continues to do its job, you need to make sure that the content, appearance and usability are near perfect. In fact, getting your web design wrong can have negative effects on your business.

Here are common mistakes small businesses make with their websites:

1. Poor Navigation
People visit websites for specific information and if they cannot locate it quickly, they will seek it elsewhere – probably your competitors. The chances of them visiting your site again is slim. A good navigation structure should be seamless and will keep visitors on your site longer. Don’t make your visitors think about how to navigate your site; it should be obvious.

2. No Call for Action. .  What Should the User Do?
Ever seen a brochure with nonsense information? This is the same for websites. The fundamental error of many small business websites is the lack of a clear call to action. You need to make sure you are asking the user to do something like buy a product, tell someone something, read a book or visit somewhere. People like to take direction. Make sure you tell them to take action before they leave your site.

3. Design and color
Website should be designed with a balance of color and contrast. This is not a priority for the average small business owner. But it should be. Take a look at your website and determine if the text is difficult to read due to the color and contrast. If readers can not read the text because it is too dark or too light, they will move on. 

4. Nonsense or no information
The most important reason why people will visit your website is to get information, and if you don’t have it, they will, once again, leave your website. Small businesses often offer too much information that the user is overloaded and can’t find the simple fact they are searching for. Keep text simple but informational.

5.Websites that have clutter
Some small business owner’s websites are so cluttered that users have a difficult time trying to figure out where to go. Keep websites clean looking and easy to read. Visitors won’t return if they can’t understand or follow the content because it is just too messy. Unfortunately, this will lead to low traffic, a high bounce rate and possibly a poor page rank.

So step back and take a fresh look at your website. By creating some slight changes to your website, you may increase business and the overall positive image of your small business.

In the not-so-distant past, Twitter seemed to be the stepchild compared to other social media marketing methods. It was available, but as a small business, you were a little intimidated and not quite sure how to use it to your advantage. You have heard other small businesses take advantage of Twitter as a social media marketing tool and become successful using it. Why not join the crowd and start microblogging?  Here are a few tips and strategies on how to do it right.

Who is your audience?
This is marketing 101 – finding your audience or the people who you want to reach. Take some time to research the leaders in your niche on Twitter as well as the key followers too. If your business is already active on social media sites and blogs, this should help you build your online presence. Make sure you follow these key people too.

How important is Twitter in your overall marketing plan?
Twitter is capable of connecting with all kinds of professionals and customers but do you have any idea how it fits within your overall marketing plan. Will you focus on new customer acquisitions or connect with journalists?  Figure this out before jumping into microblogging.

By figuring out your goals, you will get a better understanding of scoring.
Whoa, don’t get too excited if you attract a huge following on Twitter one day.  It does not mean you are guaranteed a huge impact. Again, you need your key followers who will re-tweet -- spreading your links and spreading your message. 

Zoom-in on your tactics and methods.
Make sure you add high quality and interesting contributions online and every day. Also, don’t forget to link your Twitter account to other social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Lastly, reach out and get your followers involved by hosting Twitter events such as a webinar, and again, do it frequently.

As a small business, you can take advantage of this social media marketing tool. It’s easy to use and proven to be a successful method for other small businesses.

If you keep seeing a name, it starts to sink into your memory. This is basically the same strategy to increase your search engine optimization (SEO). To maximize this effort, you want to spread your company’s name on as many useful websites as possible whether it be a social networking site or maybe a search engine.

Having your company be active on different sites. This will increase the average user’s knowledge of your company. Here are some ways to do this.

Use blogs and free social networking websites to post articles about your company.
--Make comments on other blogs or social pages.
--Aside from posting articles, you should try to leave comments on other sites – especially ones that have similar interests to your company. What can happen? Users will check out your company’s profile on the social networking site and your webpage.  Make it meaningful or it may get deleted.

Wikipedia: get your company on it.
--When something comes up on Wikipedia, people assume that it is credible. It is after all the modern enclyopedia. But getting on it can be a challenge. It usually requires a Wikipedia-approved writer. Also, some people do not know that it should come from someone other than at your company and should be newsworthy. Another plus to Wikipedia is that it feeds directly into Facebook and that means more chances that people will connect to your company. Wikipedia entries often show up at the top of search results.

Sell your product on multiple websites.
--Aside from selling your service or product on your own website, why not try Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon.com? By putting your product on these types of sites, you can increase the links back to your site and increase your SEO for organic search.

So, just like commercials, the more information about your company available to internet users, the better it is for business. Of course, the information can’t be a jingle; instead it needs to be helpful information on history and service. By doing this, you will increase awareness of your company and reach a wider pool of potential clients.

Ask yourself these questions: 

• Are you satisfied with your current website? 
  
• Is your website user-friendly and easy to navigate? 
  
• Do you have control over updating and editing your site?
• Are your visitors turning into customers?
  
• Does your website comply to current web standards? 

If you answered No to ANY of these questions, Let us give you a FREE Quote on getting your website updated.

For small businesses, email marketing may be a marketing strategy you use. But, did you know that there are “golden rules” to follow.  In fact, for a small business, forgetting any of these rules can lead to an obvious decrease in the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign, which is something you don’t want to happen. 

Like any strategy that relies on writing, the top rule is pretty basic: Keep your email marketing messages interesting to your readers. It definitely isn’t your intention or in your overall plan to send out boring emails, but it happens. Many small businesses that use email marketing get “stuck in a rut.” They write information that may seem interesting to them but is (yawn) boring to their readers who could be potential clients. Just because you think something is exciting, doesn’t mean that everyone else will agree.

So, the question is, how do you know if your email marketing messages are appealing? Here are a few ways.

• Ask them. Pretty simple strategy. You can survey readers and ask them the questions you are wondering about: what they want and need. For best results, keep the number of questions low and to the point. Your readers are busy and do not have the time to answer a long list of questions. Also, kill two birds with one stone: the survey results can be used in product and service development.
• Have a “special” content area. The surveys will give you a good idea of what your readers are interested in. Why not provide it to them in a special content area. When email list members know that in addition to your social media marketing you provide information that is usable in their life, your open rates will soar. Your company also becomes a dependable and reliable source for information that matters to them.
• Answer your readers' questions in print: Submit some questions on your email campaigns. Think about Dear Abby and other columns that became a success simply by answering questions that readers can relate to. By encouraging your readers to submit questions, you also get more information about what your readers want and need.
• Feature a customer or client in a story. Highlight a client that has used your service or bought your product. Do a short story about them. Your client will appreciate the extra attention (and publicity), and this will make your business credible. Especially if you are small business, this simple strategy fosters a sense of community involvement and interaction.
• Have your clients interact with your small business:  How? When you send out an email campaign, ask yourself if it prompt your reader to take action. If there is nothing, then you may want to rethink your angle or story. If after they read your write up, they want to buy, exercise, work, eat, create, design, shop – something – then you have succeeded in your efforts.

All great strategies have guidelines to follow. Email marketing can be a great tool for a small business, but it also can backfire and be a waste of time and money if not conducted properly.