By Vin Sparks A website is one of the most important tools any business has for branding, growing the business and engaging customers effectively. Yet nearly 50% of restaurants in the United States do not have a website or their website is inadequate to the point of harm for one reason or another: It’s outdated…
Personal Branding
A Different Perspective By Vin Sparks There is a lot of talk around marketing in general and in social media circles as well about branding. We know what branding is and there are those that understand, we’re always doing it. It’s funny, but the earliest use of the word I could think of is the…
Bringing it all Together (The Networks)
The Networks (Part 1) Is your blog ready? Good. The next thing we have to do is to look at the platforms we need to use. There are obviously many of them. However, what’s right for your company will be dictated by a number of factors: your industry, your objective and your target market –…
Bringing it all Together (The Networks)
The Networks (Part 2) LinkedIn As mentioned before, if making connections is critical to your business, LinkedIn is necessary. To be able to make tactical connections with vendors, strategic partners, prospects and employees gives you an opportunity to align your company with the right people. Look your best with a profile that spotlights your company’s…
Bringing the Strategy all Together (The Blog)
Starting on a Digital Marketing Plan Now it’s time to bringing it all together and there’s one thing you should keep in mind. Starting with your blog and moving forward, you will be thinking about one business and that would be yours. I am going to be speaking in generic terms as we approach this thing….
Social Media is Massive (Part 3)
Making Some Sense Out of LinkedIn and MeetUp Think of LinkedIn as Facebook for professionals. Someone said that if anyone depended on making connections for a living, they need to be on LinkedIn. I might be tempted to quit there but there is much more. I’m not saying connections are unimportant, they are life and…
Going Traditional
Non-digital in a Digital Program This is the fourth piece on strategic planning of a digital marketing program for your small business. I’ve provided you with a strategy diagram and we’ve been talking about the different components of that program. So far, it’s been all social media. We turn our attention a little bit now….
Social Media is Massive (Part 2)
Making Sense of YouTube and SlideShare A video-sharing website, it was bought by Google in 2006. That move allows Google, the number one search engine in the world, to enhance video search capabilities. By the way, YouTube is the number two search engine. As a SBO, this puts the power of video into your hands….
Social Media is Massive (Part 1)
Making Sense of Facebook and Twitter Statista published their 2016 social media report and this is what I saw: Facebook, the monster on the block has 1.6 billion active users, Instagram and Twitter coming in at 400 million and 320 million respectively and 100 million active users on both LinkedIn and Pinterest. It seems to…
7 Reasons to Maintain a Company Blog
What is a blog? A web log, or blog, is a type of website typically maintained by making regular entries, or posts. Who blogs? Individuals blog, companies blog and so do government agencies, news outlets, sports franchises and celebrities. Anyone, really, can blog. Most small businesses, if they have a website at all, have a…
5 Mistakes SBO Make with Social Media
I posted this on another blog 5 years ago (an excerpt): The popularity of social media is unmistakable – like the rolling sound of a bullet train. Business owners everywhere are asking themselves whether or not its time to leverage these tools to grow business. The problem is that they don’t know how, where, when, or…
In Social Media, Content is King
Social media marketing is based purely on informative and relevant content that is provided to the target audience, creating top-of-mind awareness of your brand, prompting word-of-mouth publicity and connection-based recommendations of your website and social network profiles. Let me put it this way, no one can talk about your business like you can. You have…
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