Buy American and Buy Local

IdeaOverTen is walking in memory of Marie T. Abram, who passed away from diabetes.  The Association funds research to prevent, cure and manage diabetes; delivers services to hundreds of communities; provides objective and credible information; and gives voice to those denied their rights because of diabetes.

We want to help, and I’m asking you to help, too. Together we can do so much more.  When you support me in Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes, you make a difference in the lives of 25.8 million American children and adults and their families.

How can you help?  You can make a donation to support me at http://main.diabetes.org/goto/EdwardKundahl.  Use your credit card — it’s easy and secure.  Or you can send me a check in the mail.  Make it out to the American Diabetes Association and use my address below. Any amount you can give will make a big difference.

I also want to invite you to walk with me on Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes day. You can join the team on http://main.diabetes.org/goto/IdeaOverTen
or from diabetes.org/stepout.

If you want to learn more about Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes and the Association, there’s great information on diabetes.org/stepout and www.diabetes.org.

Thank you so much!

Ed Kundahl
President
IdeaOverTen, LLC
3140 Tilghman Street
#128
Allentown, PA 18104

According to a survey released earlier this year by HubSpot, the percentage of respondents with a company blog grew from 48 percent to 65 percent over the last two years. That means the majority of business owners (or at least the majority of those who answered the survey in question) are now blogging. So, what is that compels so many business owners to blog?

Gives Your Business Credibility

There are several things your customers want to know before they do business with you, one of the most important being whether or not you’re trustworthy. If you have a blog, it gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and credibility.

 Doesn’t Feel Like Advertising

 People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. Blogging allows you to promote your business in a nonchalant way.

 Generates Leads

According to the aforementioned survey carried out by HubSpot, 57 percent of business owners said they were able to acquire customers through blogging. And statistics show that the more often you blog, the more likely you are to generate leads that convert to sales.

 Sets You Apart

What makes you different from your competitors? Why should your prospects choose you instead of somebody else? By sharing your industry viewpoints and blogging with personality, you can uniquely position your business and attract like-minded customers.

 Creates a Dialogue

When you have a static website, people merely consume the information on your site, so communication is one-sided. On the other hand, when you have a blog, visitors can leave comments and you can respond to those comments. The conversations engage your website visitors and allow you to establish more meaningful relationships with your prospects and customers.

Blogging also allows you to use the power of social proof to your advantage. If people who visit your site for the first time see that your customers and prospects are commenting on your content and interacting with you, they are more likely to comment, as well, and return to your website to check out your latest content. And by gently reminding your blog readers about the products and services you offer, you’ll be able to generate leads and sales through your blogging efforts.

 Cheaper Than Traditional Advertising Methods

 Traditional advertising methods, such as direct mail, trade shows, and the Yellow Pages, are expensive. Running a blog is a far less costly way to convert strangers into customers.

 Attracts Links

Social media users probably aren’t going to share one of your services pages or your testimonials to their network of contacts. But if you create engaging blog content that demonstrates your expertise and use social media to promote it, you can spread your content and attract links back to your site that help to improve your website’s search engine rankings.

Whether you need help setting up your blog, devising a smart blogging strategy, or creating content that attracts leads and sales, we can help. Contact us today for more information about our blogging services.

Edward R. Kundahl, Ph.D., M.B.A.
ed@ideaover10.com
www.ideaover10.com
866-864-2836

“Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean I should, too.”

“I am selling just fine without social media… why not just stick with what works?”

These are just a few examples of common objections that people have to social media marketing. Many business owners are reluctant to take the plunge because social media marketing isn’t cut and dry like traditional marketing methods and requires a significant investment of time and energy.

To create an effective social media presence, you have to figure out where your target market hangs out, build a loyal following, share valuable content, and keep showing up. Unless you go into social media marketing with a solid strategy in place for driving targeted traffic to your website and generating leads, you’ll have little to show for your efforts besides a few Twitter conversations about what you had for breakfast.

Hard-Sell Tactics Aren’t Appropriate In Social Media Marketing

Any business owner who assumes that he can open an account on Twitter, Facebook, or another trendy social media website and hawk his wares successfully will have a rude awakening. Using hard-sell tactics in social media is taboo and will get you ignored, at best. Although you cannot expect immediate results from social media marketing, your efforts will eventually pay off if you treat the social media sales process as a marathon rather than a sprint,

Social media marketing is all about building relationships with your prospects. By developing a social media presence, you can build brand awareness, which is the first step in the sales cycle. After all, it’s harder to sell to someone if they’ve never heard of your business before, particularly if you sell big ticket items. As you build your social media presence, you can use it as a tool to stay in touch with your prospects, so you’re at the top of their minds whenever they need what you have to offer.

Discover Exactly What Your Prospects Want – And Then Deliver It

Social media marketing is also useful for doing market research. For example, you can ask people on Twitter what their most common questions about your industry are and then share your answers to those questions using social media. Some ways you can do this include creating a video of yourself answering a question or writing a blog post that presents a solution to a common dilemma. Sharing helpful content like this via social media will position you as an expert in your industry, provide solutions to your prospects’ problems, and generate leads simultaneously!

But that’s where the “relationship building” part comes in. While it’s important to consistently share helpful, relevant content via social media, you cannot expect your content to go viral or attract a huge stream of leads if you have 10 Facebook fans, 25 LinkedIn connections, and 2 Twitter followers. It takes time to attract the attention of your target market and build a loyal following that helps you spread your content and message.

Fortunately, you don’t need a billion fans or followers to do this. You just need to appeal to the market to which you’re trying to sell by being helpful, addressing their needs and concerns, and being personable. Social media doesn’t sell products… people do.

Social Media Can Help You Increase Sales – But Only If You Have a Strategy

Social media marketing can be an overwhelming process if you don’t know where to start. Why not let us help you develop an effective social media marketing campaign that converts strangers into customers? Contact us today to set up your free social media marketing consultation.

Edward R. Kundahl, Ph.D. M.B.A.
President
IdeaOverTen
ed@Ideaover10.com
www.ideaover10.com

1. Helps you stand out in an increasingly noisy world

In order to attract attention and stand out in this crowded world we called the web, you can’t rely solely on traditional marketing methods. By building relationships with customers and prospects via social media and sharing helpful content with them, you’ll generate word-of-mouth advertising and boost your business’s visibility. According to Social Media Examiner’s 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 88% of marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses

2. Diversifies traffic sources

In online marketing, one of the biggest mistakes people make is putting all of their eggs in one basket. If you rely too much on one source of traffic, your business will be on the rocks whenever traffic from that source drops for whatever reason. Many business owners learned this the hard way in February of 2011, when Google rolled out the infamous Farmer Update and thousands of websites suffered a massive dip in search rankings and traffic. By incorporating social media marketing into your promotional strategy, you can diversify your website’s traffic sources and prevent uncontrollable changes from having a significant impact on your business’s bottom line.

3. Helps you reach more potential customers

Social media marketing helps you reach more potential customers. When you have a social media presence, people can find you through Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other websites, rather than just Google. And considering the fact that some internet users bypass search engines altogether and only use social media to make purchasing decisions, having a social media presence is particularly important.

4. Warms up prospects and increases referrals

Customers who find you through social media and have a good experience with your business are more likely to talk positively about you online and recommend you to their friends, family, and coworkers. Furthermore, prospects that are referred to you by someone they trust are more likely to become your customers. On the other hand, when people find you through a search engine, they have less of a connection to your business and are therefore less likely to buy from you or visit your website again.

5. Increases sales

While the results of social media aren’t as direct and tangible as those of other marketing methods, the consensus is that social media marketing helps to increase sales. According to Social Media Examiner’s 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 72% of marketers who have used social media for more than three years indicate that it has helped them close business.

It takes time to develop social media relationships that lead to more traffic, trust, and sales. If you don’t know where to start and want to avoid wasting time on ineffective strategies, contact us to set up a free social media marketing consultation. We’ll ensure that your social media campaign gets off to a successful start.

Edward R. Kundahl, Ph.D., M.B.A.
President
IdeaOverTen, LLC
www.ideaover10.com
ed@ideaover10.com
866-864-2836

According to a study conducted by social, search, and viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella, 71% of social media users say that blogs influence their purchasing decisions and 80% of them read blogs once a day or more. Zarella said, “…If you’re not blogging, and you’re a marketer or small business owner, you’re doing something wrong. You’re not doing everything you could possibly be doing.”

Why Blogging Is Vital to Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Ideally, social media marketing will increase targeted traffic to your website, improve communication between you and your customers, and generate word-of-mouth advertising. Furthermore, your business’s social media presence should give users a glimpse of what it’s like to work with you. But without your own content to promote, you won’t be able to reach potential customers as effectively.

Blasting sales messages on social media websites won’t get you anywhere. But sharing fresh, engaging, and informative blog content via social media will build trust in your business, position you as a go-to expert in your industry, and encourage people to visit your website on a regular basis. Remember: people like to buy from those they know, like, and trust. By blogging and participating in conversations on social media websites, you will appear more approachable and likeable to your prospects.

How to Blog in a Way That Complements Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Create a blog that has a clear theme and direction so you can build a loyal following. Sync your blog with the social media websites you use, so new articles are automatically posted to your social media accounts. To further consolidate your social media marketing and blogging efforts and make it easier for people to share your content on social media websites, add share buttons, like buttons, retweet buttons, and bookmarking widgets to your blog. And don’t forget to feature an RSS feed widget and email blog subscription sign-up box on your website, so people can sign up to receive free blog updates.

Not sure what to write on your blog? Some easy content ideas include answering common questions that your customers have, discussing industry news, and posting event recaps. You don’t have to write long-winded posts in order to have a successful blog. In fact, blog posts that are short, to-the-point, and provide readers with helpful information tend to fare better in social media since social media users typically have limited attention spans. Best of all, short blog posts are faster and easier for you to write.

Do you need help setting up your blog, writing engaging blog content, or developing a blogging strategy that dovetails well with your social media marketing efforts? If so, please contact us for more information about our blogging and social media marketing services.

Edward R. Kundahl, Ph.D., M.B.A.

President
IdeaOverTen, LLC
www.ideaover10.com
ed@ideaover10.com
866-864-2836

How Social Media Participation Affects Your Google Rankings

By developing a presence on various social media websites and building links from those sites that lead back to your main website, you can elevate your Google rankings. Social marketing has a direct impact on your site’s SEO because when your content is shared in social media, Google counts it as a ranking signal. In addition, if your social media updates contain target keywords, they may appear in the search results when people search for those queries.

Google has also introduced many social search features in recent years. For instance, Google now delivers its users customized search results based on who is in their social network. Furthermore, social media participation increases your visibility in Google’s Real Time Search, which displays Twitter updates, Facebook fan page updates, freshly updated web pages, and more.

Content that’s popular in social media gets more exposure, more traffic, and more inbound links. Google weighs the social authority of users to determine the value of their links, so the larger your following is in social media, the more weight your links will carry. Moreover, by building your business’s brand through the use of social media, you can attract more inbound links from webmasters, bloggers, forum moderators, and other influential internet users, which will in turn give your Google rankings a boost.

Drive More Traffic to Your Site through Social Media Participation

Not only does social media participation improve your Google rankings, it also helps you drive more targeted traffic to your site. Social media participation enables you to market your products and services and get your content in front of an interested audience. By including links to your content in social media and using clear calls-to-action, you can drive more traffic to your main website.

How to Make the Most of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing requires a significant investment of time more so than money. That’s why it’s important to be cautious about where you focus your efforts. Not all social media sites are necessarily right for your business, so do research to determine where your target audience hangs out and go where your customers are. To maximize the benefits of your social media marketing campaign, make an effort to create genuine connections with your audience and consistently provide them with content that addresses their wants and needs.

If you would you like to increase traffic to your website and boost its Google rankings with social media marketing but need help devising a strategy, please contact us to set up a free social marketing consultation.

Edward R. Kundahl, Ph.D., M.B.A.
President
IdeaOverTen, LLC
www.ideaover10.com
ed@ideaover10.com
866-864-2836