Career benefits of Social Media Marketing
Companies and businesses hire social media marketing managers to establish a more effective online presence. Consider how Facebook grew from a small company to one that caters to over 800 million users. All of these users don't simply connect with friends anymore, but actively engage with companies about products or services they like.
Social media marketing managers help develop social media pages, manage those pages, and work with teams to create content on those pages. They track target demographics, and introduce them to content they enjoy, pushing them to interact more with a brand.
As managers, they work with a variety of other social media outreach specialists, including:
Social Media Directors
Social Media Strategists
Consumer Insight Managers
Introduce with Some Social Media Marketing Platform
We’ve put together a brief overview on how to use social media for marketing according to each platform’s unique environment. Various social media marketing sites will require different techniques, so develop a unique strategy tailored for each platform. # Facebook Facebook’s casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy that begins with creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience. Social media marketing for business pages revolves around furthering your conversation with audiences by posting industry-related articles, images, videos, etc. Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly. # Google+ Google+ is the new Facebook competitor, and it promotes the same fun, casual atmosphere. On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a ―super-fan‖ circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group. You can also try hosting video conferences with Hangouts and experiment using the Hangout feature in some fun, creative ways. Some social media marketing ideas: if you're a salon, host a how-to session on how to braid your hair. If you own a local bookstore, try offering author video
chats. If you're feeling adventerous, invite your +1s to your Google+ Community. Google+ Communities will allow you to listen into your fan's feedback and input, truly putting the social back into social media. # Pinterest Pinterest is the latest in social media marketing trends. Pinterest’s image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes. Pinterest allows small businesses to showcase their own product offerings while also developing their own brand’s personality with some unique pinboards. # Twitter Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return. Mix up your official-related tweets about specials, discounts, and news updates with some fun and quirky tweets interspersed. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget answer people’s questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible # LinkedIn LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Recommendations makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established and earns trust. # YouTube YouTube is the number one place for creating video content, with can be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video ―go viral,‖ but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive ―how-to‖ videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content!
# Reddit Reddit, or similar social media platforms such as Stumble Upon or Digg, are ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social media marketing potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with fire—submit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community. If you have content you believe the Reddit community (majority is young, geeky, liberal, and internet-obsessed) would enjoy, you could reap tremendous benefits and earn valuable traffic. Using social media in marketing does more than improve site traffic and help businesses reach more customers; it provides a valuable venue for better understanding and learning from your target audiences. Hopefully this guide has helped you better understand how using social media for marketing can improve your business.
3. Search Engine Optimization
SEO stands for ―search engine optimization.‖ It is the process of getting traffic from the ―free,‖ ―organic,‖ ―editorial‖ or ―natural‖ search results on search engines.
All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.
What Should You Learn?
# Relevance One of the most important factors when it comes to SEO is relevance. The search engines don’t only want to see that you’re using specific keywords but it also wants to see how relevant your content is when it comes to specific search queries. In order to do this, search engines don’t only look at the text on your website itself. They also look at: How your website is structured What keywords are used within your URL How your page is formatted
What keywords are in the headline that are also found within the content of that given page # Backlink When it comes to SEO, keep in mind that it is constantly changing. As a result, the techniques that worked last month might get you penalized this month. However, one thing that all search engines will rely upon is authority AKA, the number of backlinks that you have. Therefore, contrary to what you might hear, SEO still relies heavily on links. Search engines will determine just how credible and authoritative a website’s content is simply by calculating the number of inbound links that you have from other websites. (By the way, an inbound link is a link pointing to your site from a 3rd party site.) However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the more backlinks you have the higher rankings you will get. Search engines also look at how authoritative these other websites are linking to you. Meaning a link coming from the New York Times is a lot more authoritative than one coming from a little website that was created a few days ago. There are other components, such as what anchor text is being used (this is the text inside the a tag) to link to your website and how old your domain is. # Technology Even if you have perfect site content, URLs, and strong inbound links —your internal structure is important. Think about it: in order for Google to crawl your site and index it properly, it has to have semantic HTML. # Meta Tags Meta tags are nothing more than HTML markup tags that give search engines more information about a web page. However, this information is not visible to viewers of the site. Instead, it is written to assist search engines in understanding a web page.
Meta tags are placed inside the head element in a web page and contain a name and content attributes. For example, the meta tag for this post that you reading could be: meta name=‖description‖ content=‖SEO for programmers‖. Meta tags are one of the most important aspects on a web page because they give search engines a short description about the page. In addition to the description meta tag, there is a meta robots tag and the title tag. # Schema Markup Schema markup is one of those SEO techniques that you will seldom hear about, but it can be one of the most effective techniques for getting quality traffic. Schema markup is code you can put in your website’s HTML that will help the search engines understand exactly what the information on your website means. It then helps the search engines to return more useful results to the user.
4. Affiliate Marketing
To define affiliate marketing is that it’s a technique where other publishers and websites will promote your business. Basically the way it works is that an affiliate is rewarded every time a visitor, customer or sale for your business is generated through an advertisement on their web site. There are many different ways compensation is provided, but the concept remains consistent—you pay them for generating business for you. If a viewer is at the affiliate’s web site, and the affiliate doesn’t quite have what they’re looking for, they can easily click over to your web site. It’s an increasingly popular technique for those seeking to maximize they’re staying power on the web.
Companies and businesses hire social media marketing managers to establish a more effective online presence. Consider how Facebook grew from a small company to one that caters to over 800 million users. All of these users don't simply connect with friends anymore, but actively engage with companies about products or services they like.
Social media marketing managers help develop social media pages, manage those pages, and work with teams to create content on those pages. They track target demographics, and introduce them to content they enjoy, pushing them to interact more with a brand.
As managers, they work with a variety of other social media outreach specialists, including:
Social Media Directors
Social Media Strategists
Consumer Insight Managers
Introduce with Some Social Media Marketing Platform
We’ve put together a brief overview on how to use social media for marketing according to each platform’s unique environment. Various social media marketing sites will require different techniques, so develop a unique strategy tailored for each platform. # Facebook Facebook’s casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy that begins with creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience. Social media marketing for business pages revolves around furthering your conversation with audiences by posting industry-related articles, images, videos, etc. Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly. # Google+ Google+ is the new Facebook competitor, and it promotes the same fun, casual atmosphere. On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a ―super-fan‖ circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group. You can also try hosting video conferences with Hangouts and experiment using the Hangout feature in some fun, creative ways. Some social media marketing ideas: if you're a salon, host a how-to session on how to braid your hair. If you own a local bookstore, try offering author video
chats. If you're feeling adventerous, invite your +1s to your Google+ Community. Google+ Communities will allow you to listen into your fan's feedback and input, truly putting the social back into social media. # Pinterest Pinterest is the latest in social media marketing trends. Pinterest’s image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes. Pinterest allows small businesses to showcase their own product offerings while also developing their own brand’s personality with some unique pinboards. # Twitter Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return. Mix up your official-related tweets about specials, discounts, and news updates with some fun and quirky tweets interspersed. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget answer people’s questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible # LinkedIn LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Recommendations makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established and earns trust. # YouTube YouTube is the number one place for creating video content, with can be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video ―go viral,‖ but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive ―how-to‖ videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content!
# Reddit Reddit, or similar social media platforms such as Stumble Upon or Digg, are ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social media marketing potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with fire—submit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community. If you have content you believe the Reddit community (majority is young, geeky, liberal, and internet-obsessed) would enjoy, you could reap tremendous benefits and earn valuable traffic. Using social media in marketing does more than improve site traffic and help businesses reach more customers; it provides a valuable venue for better understanding and learning from your target audiences. Hopefully this guide has helped you better understand how using social media for marketing can improve your business.
3. Search Engine Optimization
SEO stands for ―search engine optimization.‖ It is the process of getting traffic from the ―free,‖ ―organic,‖ ―editorial‖ or ―natural‖ search results on search engines.
All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.
What Should You Learn?
# Relevance One of the most important factors when it comes to SEO is relevance. The search engines don’t only want to see that you’re using specific keywords but it also wants to see how relevant your content is when it comes to specific search queries. In order to do this, search engines don’t only look at the text on your website itself. They also look at: How your website is structured What keywords are used within your URL How your page is formatted
What keywords are in the headline that are also found within the content of that given page # Backlink When it comes to SEO, keep in mind that it is constantly changing. As a result, the techniques that worked last month might get you penalized this month. However, one thing that all search engines will rely upon is authority AKA, the number of backlinks that you have. Therefore, contrary to what you might hear, SEO still relies heavily on links. Search engines will determine just how credible and authoritative a website’s content is simply by calculating the number of inbound links that you have from other websites. (By the way, an inbound link is a link pointing to your site from a 3rd party site.) However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the more backlinks you have the higher rankings you will get. Search engines also look at how authoritative these other websites are linking to you. Meaning a link coming from the New York Times is a lot more authoritative than one coming from a little website that was created a few days ago. There are other components, such as what anchor text is being used (this is the text inside the a tag) to link to your website and how old your domain is. # Technology Even if you have perfect site content, URLs, and strong inbound links —your internal structure is important. Think about it: in order for Google to crawl your site and index it properly, it has to have semantic HTML. # Meta Tags Meta tags are nothing more than HTML markup tags that give search engines more information about a web page. However, this information is not visible to viewers of the site. Instead, it is written to assist search engines in understanding a web page.
Meta tags are placed inside the head element in a web page and contain a name and content attributes. For example, the meta tag for this post that you reading could be: meta name=‖description‖ content=‖SEO for programmers‖. Meta tags are one of the most important aspects on a web page because they give search engines a short description about the page. In addition to the description meta tag, there is a meta robots tag and the title tag. # Schema Markup Schema markup is one of those SEO techniques that you will seldom hear about, but it can be one of the most effective techniques for getting quality traffic. Schema markup is code you can put in your website’s HTML that will help the search engines understand exactly what the information on your website means. It then helps the search engines to return more useful results to the user.
4. Affiliate Marketing
To define affiliate marketing is that it’s a technique where other publishers and websites will promote your business. Basically the way it works is that an affiliate is rewarded every time a visitor, customer or sale for your business is generated through an advertisement on their web site. There are many different ways compensation is provided, but the concept remains consistent—you pay them for generating business for you. If a viewer is at the affiliate’s web site, and the affiliate doesn’t quite have what they’re looking for, they can easily click over to your web site. It’s an increasingly popular technique for those seeking to maximize they’re staying power on the web.